Retrospection and Introspection Part 8

In this orderly, scientific dispensation healers become a law unto themselves. They feel their own burdens less, and can therefore bear the weight of others' burdens, since it is only through the lens of their unselfishness that the sunshine of Truth beams with such efficacy as to dissolve error.

It is already understood that Christian Scientists will not receive a patient who is under the care of a regular physician, until he has done with the case and different aid is sought. The same courtesy should be observed in the professional intercourse of Christian Science healers with one another.

_Second_: Another command of the Christ, his prime command, was that his followers should "raise the dead." He lifted his own body from the sepulchre. In him, Truth called the physical man from the tomb to health, and the so-called dead forthwith emerged into a higher manifestation of Life.

The spiritual significance of this command, "Raise the dead," most concerns mankind. It implies such an elevation of the understanding as will enable thought to apprehend the living beauty of Love, its practicality, its divine energies, its health-giving and life-bestowing qualities,--yea, its power to demonstrate immortality. This end Jesus achieved, both by example and precept.

_Third_: This leads inevitably to a consideration of another part of Christian Science work,--a part which concerns us intimately,--preaching the gospel.

This evangelistic duty should not be so warped as to signify that we must or may go, uninvited, to work in other vineyards than our own. One would, or should, blush to enter unasked another's pulpit, and preach without the consent of the stated occupant of that pulpit. The Lord's command means this, that we should adopt the spirit of the Saviour's ministry, and abide in such a spiritual att.i.tude as will draw men unto us. Itinerancy should not be allowed to clip the wings of divine Science. Mind demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love. The divine potency of this spiritual mode of Mind, and the hindrance opposed to it by material motion, is proven beyond a doubt in the practice of Mind-healing.

In those days preaching and teaching were substantially one. There was no church preaching, in the modern sense of the term. Men a.s.sembled in the one temple (at Jerusalem) for sacrificial ceremonies, not for sermons. Into the synagogues, scattered about in cities and villages, they went for liturgical worship, and instruction in the Mosaic law. If one worshipper preached to the others, he did so informally, and because he was bidden to this privileged duty at that particular moment. It was the custom to pay this hortatory compliment to a stranger, or to a member who had been away from the neighborhood; as Jesus was once asked to exhort, when he had been some time absent from Nazareth but once again entered the synagogue which he had frequented in childhood.

Jesus' method was to instruct his own students; and he watched and guarded them unto the end, even according to his promise, "Lo, I am with you alway!" Nowhere in the four Gospels will Christian Scientists find any precedent for employing another student to take charge of their students, or for neglecting their own students, in order to enlarge their sphere of action.

Above all, trespa.s.s not intentionally upon other people's thoughts, by endeavoring to influence other minds to any action not first made known to them or sought by them. Corporeal and selfish influence is human, fallible, and temporary; but incorporeal impulsion is divine, infallible, and eternal. The student should be most careful not to thrust aside Science, and shade G.o.d's window which lets in light, or seek to stand in G.o.d's stead.

Does the faithful shepherd forsake the lambs,--retaining his salary for tending the home flock while he is serving another fold? There is no evidence to show that Jesus ever entered the towns whither he sent his disciples; no evidence that he there taught a few hungry ones, and then left them to starve or to stray. To these selected ones (like "the elect lady" to whom St. John addressed one of his epistles) he gave personal instruction, and gave in plain words, until they were able to fulfil his behest and depart on their united pilgrimages. This he did, even though one of the twelve whom he kept near himself betrayed him, and others forsook him.

The true mother never willingly neglects her children in their early and sacred hours, consigning them to the care of nurse or stranger. Who can feel and comprehend the needs of her babe like the ardent mother? What other heart yearns with her solicitude, endures with her patience, waits with her hope, and labors with her love, to promote the welfare and happiness of her children? Thus must the Mother in Israel give all her hours to those first sacred tasks, till her children can walk steadfastly in wisdom's ways.

One of my students wrote to me: "I believe the proper thing for us to do is to follow, as nearly as we can, in the path you have pursued!" It is gladdening to find, in such a student, one of the children of light. It is safe to leave with G.o.d the government of man. He appoints and He anoints His Truth-bearers, and G.o.d is their sure defense and refuge.

The parable of "the prodigal son" is rightly called "the pearl of parables," and our Master's greatest utterance may well be called "the diamond sermon." No purer and more exalted teachings ever fell upon human ears than those contained in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount,--though this name has been given it by compilers and translators of the Bible, and not by the Master himself or by the Scripture authors.

Indeed, this t.i.tle really indicates more the Master's mood, than the material locality.

Where did Jesus deliver this great lesson--or, rather, this series of great lessons--on humanity and divinity? On a hillside, near the sloping sh.o.r.es of the Lake of Galilee, where he spake primarily to his immediate disciples.

In this simplicity, and with such fidelity, we see Jesus ministering to the spiritual needs of all who placed themselves under his care, always leading them into the divine order, under the sway of his own perfect understanding. His power over others was spiritual, not corporeal. To the students whom he had chosen, his immortal teaching was the bread of Life.

When _he_ was with them, a fishing-boat became a sanctuary, and the solitude was peopled with holy messages from the All-Father. The grove became his cla.s.s-room, and nature's haunts were the Messiah's university.

What has this hillside priest, this seaside teacher, done for the human race? Ask, rather, what has he _not_ done. His holy humility, unworldliness, and self-abandonment wrought infinite results. The method of his religion was not too simple to be sublime, nor was his power so exalted as to be unavailable for the needs of suffering mortals, whose wounds he healed by Truth and Love.

His order of ministration was "first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear." May we unloose the latchets of his Christliness, inherit his legacy of love, and reach the fruition of his promise: "If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you."

WAYMARKS

In the first century of the Christian era Jesus went about doing good. The evangelists of those days wandered about. Christ, or the spiritual idea, appeared to human consciousness as the man Jesus. At the present epoch the human concept of Christ is based on the incorporeal divine Principle of man, and Science has elevated this idea and established its rules in consonance with their Principle. Hear this saying of our Master, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

The ideal of G.o.d is no longer impersonated as a waif or wanderer; and Truth is not fragmentary, disconnected, unsystematic, but concentrated and immovably fixed in Principle. The best spiritual type of Christly method for uplifting human thought and imparting divine Truth, is stationary power, stillness, and strength; and when this spiritual ideal is made our own, it becomes the model for human action.

St. Paul said to the Athenians, "For in Him we live, and move, and have our being." This statement is in substance identical with my own: "There is no life, truth, substance, nor intelligence in matter." It is quite clear that as yet this grandest verity has not been fully demonstrated, but it is nevertheless true. If Christian Science reiterates St. Paul's teaching, we, as Christian Scientists, should give to the world convincing proof of the validity of this scientific statement of being. Having perceived, in advance of others, this scientific fact, we owe to ourselves and to the world a struggle for its demonstration.

At some period and in some way the conclusion must be met that whatsoever seems true, and yet contradicts divine Science and St. Paul's text, must be and is false; and that whatsoever seems to be good, and yet errs, though acknowledging the true way, is really evil.

As dross is separated from gold, so Christ's baptism of fire, his purification through suffering, consumes whatsoever is of sin. Therefore this purgation of divine mercy, destroying all error, leaves no flesh, no matter, to the mental consciousness.

When all fleshly belief is annihilated, and every spot and blemish on the disk of consciousness is removed, then, and not till then, will immortal Truth be found true, and scientific teaching, preaching, and practice be essentially one. "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth ... for whatsoever is not of faith is sin." (Romans xiv.

22, 23.)

There is no "lo here! or lo there!" in divine Science; its manifestation must be "the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever," since Science is eternally one, and unchanging, in Principle, rule, and demonstration.

I am persuaded that only by the modesty and distinguishing affection ill.u.s.trated in Jesus' career, can Christian Scientists aid the establishment of Christ's kingdom on the earth. In the first century of the Christian era Jesus' teachings bore much fruit, and the Father was glorified therein. In this period and the forthcoming centuries, watered by dews of divine Science, this "tree of life" will blossom into greater freedom, and its leaves will be "for the healing of the nations."

Ask G.o.d to give thee skill In comfort's art: That thou may'st consecrated be And set apart Unto a life of sympathy.

For heavy is the weight of ill In every heart; And comforters are needed much Of Christlike touch.

--A.E. HAMILTON.

THE PLIMPTON PRESS

NORWOOD Ma.s.s USA

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: See Page 311, Lines 12 to 17, "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany."]

[Footnote B: This statement appears to be based upon the Annual Report of the Secretary of The Christian Scientist a.s.sociation, read at its meeting, January 15, 1880, in which June is named as the month in which the charter for The Mother Church was obtained, instead of August 23, 1879, the correct date.]

[Footnote C: An alder growing from the bent branch of a pear-tree.]

[Footnote D: Steps were taken to promote the Church of Christ, Scientist, in April, May and June; formal organization was accomplished and the charter obtained in August, 1879]