ABOUT sixteen years after the first return of the exiles from Babylon the prophetical careers of Haggai and Zechariah began almost simultaneously. The immediate aim of these two prophets was to awaken their fellow countrymen to the necessity of erecting or completing the second temple, and in the fifth and sixth chapters of Ezra they are mentioned as having been sent by God to encourage the Jews to proceed with the work of rebuilding the temple. Though the main prophecies of these two men run parallel. each has its own special characteristics. The style of Haggai, even if it be lacking in imagination and poetical power, is practical, simple, and direct; while that of Zechariah is much more elaborate and his fertility of symbolic invention is remarkable; in many noble passages he has carried on the thought of the great eighth century prophets. He declares that God demands no fasts, but rather that men should be obedient to His commands and "execute true judgment, and shew mercy and compassions." Zechariah conveys his message through a series of night visions. He sees Truth symbolized by a golden candlestick; and again as a "flying roll," entering into the hearts of men to destroy evil and so to prevent them from living in what Ezekiel called the chambers of imagery.
In these days of upheaval and rapid change, when reformers are trying to assess the true value of human progress and to find a synthesis which will draw together the many-colored threads of diverse thinking, it is well to remember the famous saying of Augustine, "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and our heart knows no rest until it rests in Thee." As a matter of fact, it is obvious that an attempt to piece together all the available ends of human knowledge, and to trace the genesis of economic and social unrest, is bound to result in failure. Such things are unreal effects of an unreal cause; and those fictitious effects will continue until the human mind is purged of its materialism and consequent impurity and instructed out of its erroneous beliefs. The destruction of these beliefs is the mission of Christian Science of which Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 227:) "Christian Science raises the standard of liberty and cries: 'Follow me! Escape from the bondage of sickness, sin, and death!' Jesus marked out the way. Citizens of the world, accept the 'glorious liberty of the children of God,' and be free!"
In the fourth chapter of Zechariah is the vision of the golden candlestick and the two olive trees, spoken of in Revelation as the two witnesses. How wonderfully clear these symbols become when we read what our Leader says in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," beginning on page 346, "Science and Health makes it plain to all Christian Scientists that the manhood and womanhood of God have already been revealed in a degree through Christ Jesus and Christian Science, His two witnesses." A close study of the Bible is as necessary to the Christian Scientist as is the study of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" itself, for these again are the two witnesses, the two preachers not only for the Christian Science church, but for the whole world. Their teaching enables us to prove that Spirit is the only reality and that the only creation is that of divine Mind. In that immortal sentence, "All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (Science and Health, p. 468), Mrs. Eddy lays bare the pretensions of mortal mind.
