Article January 30, 1902 Issue

Christian Science: the Gospel of Love A Lecture

BY WILLIAM P. McKENZIE.

At the turning point of the centuries there comes usually a questioning of heart, a deep dissatisfaction with traditional beliefs, and a thirsty hoping for satisfying truth, so that men cry out after God. There comes an answer to the prayer of man at such times, and the initiation of the century is usually accompanied by a revival of interest in religion. Since the world is progressive, we may expect the revival which will mark the opening years of the twentieth century, to excel in liberative force any revival of past times. This we may expect on general principles; but there is also special and exact ground for this high expectation; namely, this: that for thirty preparatory years, during the life of one generation of mankind, there has been a thought-movement operative, the laborers in which are re-establishing primitive Christianity, "Good also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders, and by manifold powers, and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his will."

It requires the long patience of years to overcome human prejudice, that peculiar faculty for making wrong or inadequate decisions, which has proved itself hostile to every good gift God sends to the race. Prejudice, by arousing fear through misrepresentation, and by persecuting earth's benefactors, has endeavored to deprive man of the unfolding good he was becoming ready to receive. But an end approaches for this period of active hostility to Christian Science which comes to man offering the only satisfactory solution for the problem of life, the solution whereby evil is eliminated, and the eternal Goodness is found to be all in all. So many cases of the healing of sickness and Christianizing of character at the same time, are on record, that almost every man knows of some case where a relative or friend has reason to rise up and call Christian Science blessed. So we find the audiences which assemble at our lectures come not so much as critics resolved to find fault, but rather as interested seekers after larger knowledge of a truth which has already proved its beneficence. It is knowledge of Truth which gives entrance into the kingdom of heaven. Those at present oppressed by unhealed sickness, fettered by evil habits and perverted modes of thought, or hypnotized by the attractions of sin, do not understand the Truth that would make them free; and the purpose of this lecture is to present it as given by Christian Science, and offer its illumination so that if any one who hears love the light, he may walk therein.

There is a general desire in the hearts of men for better conditions. Men try to win the good for themselves individually, but it is not possible to make the good secure except as good is made universal. Distrust must be destroyed and a more genial condition of understanding be gained. It now happens often that when the employer seeks to ease conditions for his men he is rebuffed, and becomes hardened. Also it happens with the employee that his efforts to do kind acts, and his acceptance of unrequired tasks, are misunderstood, and he becomes discouraged. Now the world is full of kindness if the separate acts could be linked together and harmonized by a principle of action. We have seen how even thieves and murderers show sometimes a gleam of conscience, a spark of tenderness. But oftentimes our sympathy with them is crude and unregulated. Asylums set up their signboards over the world's woes, but if to a degree they alleviate, do they heal them? Ruskin speaks of our plastering over the sores of civilization while the gangrene eats deeper.

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