Article November 10, 1906 Issue

A WEDNESDAY EVENING TESTIMONY

Mary Elizabeth Lease

Some years ago, at the annual banquet of the Medico-Legal Society of the city of New York, being invited to speak, I made use of the opportunity afforded to flippantly deride Christian Science and ridicule its Founder, Mrs. Eddy. I have frequently, on various public occasions, denounced Christian Science as a species of self-induced hypnosis and warned my hearers to be on their guard against its insidious encroachments. Whereas I was then woefully blind, I now see, and I desire publicly to retract, and publicly express my profound humility and regret for the statements or misstatements uttered upon various occasions.

Though given many opportunities to come into the light of Truth, I rejected and turned away from each blessed opportunity, because of my unreasoning prejudices against Mrs. Eddy,—prejudices which kept me for many years from coming into the possession of the kingdom. Not until I grew into the unfolded consciousness that led to the uncovering of error, and revealed my prejudices as the manifestations of petty envy and jealousy engendered in the human mind, because of its innate hatred of Truth and Love, did I realize the immeasurable distance between where I stood and the heights of exalted spiritualized consciousness to which Mrs. Eddy had attained and to which I must aspire.

We may be sure that when an individual expresses unkindly criticism of Mrs. Eddy, when he declares that he likes Christian Science, and would be willing to accept it if Mrs. Eddy were not mentioned so frequently, we may be very sure that this individual is far from the kingdom of God, very far from the country toward which we are traveling in the upward journey from sense to Soul. The unjust and unfounded criticisms of our great Leader are nurtured in the miasma of intolerance of the truth,—the deadly atmosphere of envy and jealousy,—and these noxious vapors must be driven out, utterly consumed in the crucible of divine Love, before we can wear the crown that is promised to those who overcome. The positive application of truth can alone disclose the nature and demonstrate the absolute unreality of what is erroneous.

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