Miscellaneous Writings Part 23

rise and overthrow both. If a criminal coax the unwary man to commit a crime, our laws punish the dupe as ac- cessory to the fact. Each individual is responsible for himself.

Evil is impotent to turn the righteous man from his [10]

uprightness. The nature of the individual, more stub- born than the circ.u.mstance, will always be found argu- ing for itself,-its habits, tastes, and indulgences. This material nature strives to tip the beam against the spir- itual nature; for the flesh strives against Spirit,-against [15]

whatever or whoever opposes evil,-and weighs mightily in the scale against man's high destiny. This conclusion is not an argument either for pessimism or for optimism, but is a plea for free moral agency,-full exemption from all necessity to obey a power that should be and is [20]

found powerless in Christian Science.

Insubordination to the law of Love even in the least, or strict obedience thereto, tests and discriminates be- tween the real and the unreal Scientist. Justice, a prominent statute in the divine law, demands of all [25]

trespa.s.sers upon the spa.r.s.e individual rights which one justly reserves to one's self,-Would you consent that others should tear up your landmarks, manipulate your students, nullify or reverse your rules, countermand your orders, steal your possessions, and escape the [30]

penalty therefor? No! "Therefore all things what- soever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even

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so to them." The professors of Christian Science must [1]

take off their shoes at our altars; they must unclasp the material sense of things at the very threshold of Christian Science: they must obey implicitly each and every injunction of the divine Principle of life's long [5]

problem, or repeat their work in tears. In the words of St. Paul, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield your- selves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of _obedience_ unto righteousness?" [10]

Beloved students, loyal laborers are ye that have wrought valiantly, and achieved great guerdons in the vineyard of our Lord; but a mighty victory is yet to be won, a great freedom for the race; and Christian success is under arms,-with armor on, not laid down. Let us [15]

rejoice, however, that the clarion call of peace will at length be heard above the din of battle, and come more sweetly to our ear than sound of vintage bells to villagers on the Rhine.

I recommend that this a.s.sociation hereafter meet tri- [20]

ennially; many of its members reside a long distance from Ma.s.sachusetts, and they are members of The Mother Church who would love to be with you on Sunday, and once in three years is perhaps as often as they can afford to be away from their own fields of labor. [25]

Communion Address, January, 1896

_Friends and Brethren:_-The Biblical record of the great Nazarene, whose character we to-day commemorate, is scanty; but what is given, puts to flight every doubt as to the immortality of his words and works. Though [30]

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written in a decaying language, his words can never pa.s.s [1]

away: they are inscribed upon the hearts of men: they are engraved upon eternity's tablets.

Undoubtedly our Master partook of the Jews' feast of the Pa.s.sover, and drank from their festal wine-cup. [5]

This, however, is not the cup to which I call your at- tention,-even the cup of martyrdom: wherein Spirit and matter, good and evil, seem to grapple, and the human struggles against the divine, up to a point of discovery; namely, the impotence of evil, and the om- [10]

nipotence of good, as divinely attested. Anciently, the blood of martyrs was believed to be the seed of the Church.

Stalled theocracy would make this fatal doctrine just and sovereign, even a divine decree, a law of Love! That the innocent shall suffer for the guilty, is inhuman. The [15]

prophet declared, "Thou shalt put away the guilt of innocent blood from Israel." This is plain: that what- ever belittles, befogs, or belies the nature and essence of Deity, is not divine. Who, then, shall father or favor this sentence pa.s.sed upon innocence? thereby giving the [20]

signet of G.o.d to the arrest, trial, and crucifixion of His beloved Son, the righteous Nazarene,-christened by John the Baptist, "the Lamb of G.o.d."

Oh! shameless insult to divine royalty, that drew from the great Master this answer to the questions of the [25]

rabbinical rabble: "If I tell you, ye will not believe; and if I also ask you, ye will not answer me, nor let me go."

Infinitely greater than human pity, is divine Love,- that cannot be unmerciful. Human tribunals, if just, borrow their sense of justice from the divine Principle [30]

thereof, which punishes the guilty, not the innocent. The Teacher of both law and gospel construed the subst.i.tution

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of a good man to suffer for evil-doers-a _crime_! When [1]

foretelling his own crucifixion, he said, "Woe unto the world because of offenses! for it must needs be that offenses come; but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh!" [5]

Would Jesus thus have spoken of what was indis- pensable for the salvation of a world of sinners, or of the individual instrument in this holy (?) alliance for accom- plis.h.i.+ng such a monstrous work? or have said of him whom G.o.d foreordained and predestined to fulfil a divine [10]

decree, "It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea"?

The divine order is the acme of mercy: it is neither questionable nor a.s.sailable: it is not evil producing good, [15]

nor good ultimating in evil. Such an inference were impious. Holy Writ denounces him that declares, "Let us do evil, that good may come! whose d.a.m.nation is just."

Good is not educed from its opposite: and Love divine [20]

spurned, lessens not the hater's hatred nor the criminal's crime; nor reconciles justice to injustice; nor subst.i.tutes the suffering of the G.o.dlike for the suffering due to sin.

Neither spiritual bankruptcy nor a religious chancery can win high heaven, or the "Well done, good and faithful [25]

servant,... enter thou into the joy of thy Lord."

Divine Love knows no hate; for hate, or the hater, is nothing: G.o.d never made it, and He made all that was made. The hater's pleasures are unreal; his sufferings, self-imposed; his existence is a parody, and he ends- [30]

with suicide.

The murder of the just Nazarite was incited by the

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same spirit that in our time ma.s.sacres our missionaries, [1]

butchers the helpless Armenians, slaughters innocents.

Evil was, and is, the illusion of breaking the First Com- mandment, "Thou shalt have no other G.o.ds before me:"

it is either idolizing something and somebody, or hating [5]

them: it is the spirit of idolatry, envy, jealousy, covet- ousness, superst.i.tion, l.u.s.t, hypocrisy, _witchcraft_.

That man can break the forever-law of infinite Love, was, and is, the serpent's biggest lie! and ultimates in a religion of pagan priests bloated with crime; a religion [10]

that demands human victims to be sacrificed to human pa.s.sions and human G.o.ds, or tortured to appease the anger of a so-called G.o.d or a miscalled man or woman!

The a.s.syrian Merodach, or the G.o.d of sin, was the "lucky G.o.d;" and the Babylonian Yawa, or Jehovah, was the [15]

Jewish tribal deity. The _Christian's_ G.o.d is neither, and is too pure to behold iniquity.

Divine Science has rolled away the stone from the sepul- chre of our Lord; and there has risen to the awakened thought the majestic atonement of divine Love. The [20]

at-one-ment with Christ has appeared-not through vicarious suffering, whereby the just obtain a pardon for the unjust,-but through the eternal law of justice; wherein sinners suffer for their own sins, repent, forsake sin, love G.o.d, and keep His commandments, thence to [25]

receive the reward of righteousness: salvation from sin, not through the _death_ of a man, but through a divine _Life_, which is our Redeemer.

Holy Writ declares that G.o.d is Love, is Spirit; hence it follows that those who wors.h.i.+p Him, must wors.h.i.+p [30]

Him spiritually,-far apart from physical sensation such as attends eating and drinking corporeally. It is

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plain that aught unspiritual, intervening between G.o.d [1]

and man, would tend to disturb the divine order, and countermand the Scripture that those who wors.h.i.+p the Father must wors.h.i.+p Him in spirit. It is also plain, that we should not seek and cannot find G.o.d in mat- [5]

ter, or through material methods; neither do we love and obey Him by means of matter, or the flesh,-which warreth against Spirit, and will not be reconciled thereto.

We turn, with sickened sense, from a pagan Jew's [10]

or Moslem's misconception of Deity, for peace; and find rest in the spiritual ideal, or Christ. For "who is so great a G.o.d as our G.o.d!" unchangeable, all-wise, all- just, all-merciful; the ever-loving, ever-living Life, Truth, Love: comforting such as mourn, opening the prison [15]

doors to the captive, marking the unwinged bird, pitying with more than a father's pity; healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, saving sinners. As we think thereon, man's true sense is filled with peace, and power; and we say, It is well that Christian Science has taken [20]

expressive silence wherein to muse His praise, to kiss the feet of Jesus, adore the white Christ, and stretch out our arms to G.o.d.