Article September 26, 1908 Issue

THE LECTURES

with contributions from Henry Deutsch, Oscar Smith

At the Auditorium Friday evening, Sept. 11, an audience of three thousand persons heard a lecture on Christian Science delivered by Mrs. Sue Harper Mims of Atlanta, Ga., under the auspices of Second Church of Christ, Scientist. Mrs. Mims was introduced by Henry Deutsch, First Reader of Second Church, who said in part,—

The final goal of mankind is contentment—happiness—and in this quest we are all engaged. Whatever may seem to be the ideals—wealth, power, position, success—they are but our conceptions of the means to attain this end. In the pursuit of this ultimate, history demonstrates that, eventually, men turn from all other expedients, from all further seeking, to religion—the science of their relationship to a supreme power whom we call God; for there is in every human being an innate strain of religion, and at some time in his experience, when all other expedients fail, its undercurrents rise to the surface, and he turns for comfort and help to God as instinctively as the child does to the human parent. The great weakness of humankind, its irreligion and tendencies towards atheism and agnosticism, arise not from the absence of the religious instinct, but from the baffling indecision occasioned by lack of true understanding. The spirit of religion has been so enshrouded and hidden in the mazes of philosophical abstractions and theological speculations, that when men have asked for the bread of comfort they have seemed to receive nothing but the stone of cold theory and dogma, and the promise of a postponed salvation that offers no present path out of the conditions of chaotic doubt and uncertainty.

Something over forty years ago, a gentle, loving woman in New England, our Leader, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, was led to the mountain-tops of Spirit, and there beheld again the revelation of the Christ-truth,—religion pure and undefiled, religion that defined clearly and without possibility of question the relation between man and his Maker—man as the image and likeness of God. For three years afterwards she prayed, toiled, and worked earnestly and patiently to discover the positive rules by which this revelation might be brought to mankind. After her search was rewarded, she expounded with the exactness of science the rules by which the understanding of that truth might be obtained now, and thus enable us practically to demonstrate the attainment of our highest desire, a present salvation now at hand. During all the intervening years, this truth—designated by her as Christian Science—has been proving its validity by elevating and regenerating mankind, healing the sick, reforming the sinning, and bringing sunshine and happiness into human experience.

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