Part 63 (2/2)
Teaching Christian Science shall be no question of [20]
money, but of morals and of uplifting the race. Teachers shall form a.s.sociations for this purpose; and for the first few years, convene as often as once in three months.
Teachers shall not silently mentally address the thought, to handle it, nor allow their students to do thus, except [25]
the individual needing it asks for mental treatment.
They shall steadily and patiently strive to educate their students in conformity to the unerring wisdom and law of G.o.d, and shall enjoin upon them habitually to study His revealed Word, the Scriptures, and ”Science and [30]
Health with Key to the Scriptures.”
They shall teach their students how to defend them-
[Page 316.]
selves against mental malpractice, but never to return [1]
evil for evil; never to attack the malpract.i.tioner, but to know the truth that makes free,-and so to be a law not unto others, but themselves.
Cla.s.s, Pulpit, Students' Students
When will you take a cla.s.s in Christian Science or [6]
speak to your church in Boston? is often asked.
I shall speak to my dear church at Boston very seldom.
The Mother Church must be self-sustained by G.o.d.
The date of a cla.s.s in Christian Science should depend [10]
on the fitness of things, the tide which flows heavenward, the hour best for the student. Until minds become less worldly-minded, and depart farther from the primitives of the race, and have profited up to their present capac- ity from the written word, they are not ready for the [15]
word spoken at this date.
My juniors can tell others what they know, and turn them slowly toward the haven. Imperative, acc.u.mula- tive, sweet demands rest on my retirement from life's bustle. What, then, of continual recapitulation of tired [20]
aphorisms and disappointed ethics; of patching breaches widened the next hour; of pounding wisdom and love into sounding bra.s.s; of warming marble and quench- ing volcanoes! Before entering the Ma.s.sachusetts Meta- physical College, had my students achieved the point [25]
whence they could have derived most benefit from their pupilage, to-day there would be on earth paragons of Christianity, patterns of humility, wisdom, and might for the world.
[Page 317.]
To the students whom I have not seen that ask, ”May [1]
I call you mother?” my heart replies, _Yes_, if you are doing G.o.d's work. When born of Truth and Love, we are all of one kindred.
The hour has struck for Christian Scientists to do their [5]
own work; to appreciate the signs of the times; to dem- onstrate self-knowledge and self-government; and to demonstrate, as this period demands, over all sin, disease, and death. The dear ones whom I would have great pleasure in instructing, know that the door to my teaching [10]
was shut when my College closed.
Again, it is not absolutely requisite for some people to be taught in a cla.s.s, for they can learn by spiritual growth and by the study of what is written. Scarcely a moiety, compared with the whole of the Scriptures and [15]
the Christian Science textbook, is yet a.s.similated spirit- ually by the most faithful seekers; yet this a.s.similation is indispensable to the progress of every Christian Scientist.
These considerations prompt my answers to the above questions. Human desire is inadequate to adjust the [20]
balance on subjects of such earnest import. These words of our Master explain this hour: ”What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter.”
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