Part 35 (2/2)
But what of ourselves, and our times and obligations? [25]
Are we duly aware of our own great opportunities and responsibilities? Are we prepared to meet and improve them, to act up to the acme of divine energy wherewith we are armored?
[Page 177.]
Never was there a more solemn and imperious call [1]
than G.o.d makes to us all, right here, for fervent de- votion and an absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes. The hour is come. The great battle of Armageddon is upon us. The powers of evil [5]
are leagued together in secret conspiracy against the Lord and against His Christ, as expressed and opera- tive in Christian Science. Large numbers, in desperate malice, are engaged day and night in organizing action against us. Their feeling and purpose are deadly, and [10]
they have sworn enmity against the lives of our standard- bearers.
What will you do about it? Will you be equally in earnest for the truth? Will you doff your lavender-kid zeal, and become real and consecrated warriors? Will [15]
you give yourselves wholly and irrevocably to the great work of establis.h.i.+ng the truth, the gospel, and the Science which are necessary to the salvation of the world from error, sin, disease, and death? Answer at once and practi- cally, and answer aright! [20]
Easter Services
The editor of _The Christian Science Journal_ said that at three o'clock, the hour for the church service proper, the pastor, Rev. Mary Baker G. Eddy, accompanied by Rev. D. A. Easton, who was announced to preach [25]
the sermon, came on the platform. The pastor introduced Mr. Easton as follows:-
_Friends_:-The homesick traveller in foreign lands greets with joy a familiar face. I am constantly home- sick for heaven. In my long journeyings I have met [30]
[Page 178.]
one who comes from the place of my own sojourning [1]
for many years,-the Congregational Church. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College and of Andover The- ological School. He has left his old church, as I did, from a yearning of the heart; because he was not sat- [5]
isfied with a manlike G.o.d, but wanted to become a G.o.d- like man. He found that the new wine could not be put into old bottles without bursting them, and he came to us.
Mr. Easton then delivered an interesting discourse [10]
from the text, ”If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of G.o.d” (Col. iii. 1), which he prefaced by saying:-
”I think it was about a year ago that I strayed into [15]
this hall, a stranger, and wondered what sort of people you were, and of what you were wors.h.i.+ppers. If any one had said to me that to-day I should stand before you to preach a sermon on Christian Science, I should have replied, ”Much learning”-or something else- [20]
”hath made thee mad.” If I had not found Christian Science a new gospel, I should not be standing before you: if I had not found it truth, I could not have stood up again _to_ preach, here or elsewhere.”
At the conclusion of the sermon, the pastor again came [25]
forward, and added the following:-
My friends, I wished to be excused from speaking to-day, but will yield to circ.u.mstances. In the flesh, we are as a part.i.tion wall between the old and the new; between the old religion in which we have been educated, [30]
and the new, living, impersonal Christ-thought that has been given to the world to-day.
[Page 179.]
The old churches are saying, ”He is not here;” and, [1]
”Who shall roll away the stone?”
The stone has been rolled away by human suffer- ing. The first rightful desire in the hour of loss, when believing we have lost sight of Truth, is to know where [5]
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