Part 23 (1/2)
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
[Page 120.]
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]
[Page 121.]
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]