Article August 7, 1909 Issue

THE LECTURES

with contributions from S. G. Heiskell, George S. Yerger

Frank H. Leonard lectured May 25 on Christian Science. He was introduced by the Hon. S. G. Heiskell, who said in part,—

We appeal to history in vain to tell us of a religion that was founded by woman, and that too when we know that without woman all religions would have perished from the earth. Woman has achieved distinction with the brush of the painter and the chisel of the sculptor, she has written fiction that will live always and poetry that appeals to all men, she has been a devotee of the fine arts in all lands, she has practised medicine and nursed the sick back to health, she has been the queen of kingdoms and the empress of empires; but with all her varied activities and all her historical devotion to some god and some religion, she has been content to follow in the religious footsteps where men have led, to worship at altars that men have erected, to shout the praises of some deity that men have portrayed, and to aspire for that hereafter which men have said would finally come.

While it has been said that no woman ever founded a religion, it was left to the nineteenth century to witness the coming of Mary Baker Eddy, who, if she was not to found a new religion, was at least to make so radical a departure in the interpretation of an established religion, and to impress herself and her doctrine so profoundly upon thousands of men and women, that she virtually stands as one of the religious founders before the world. I am not a follower of Mrs. Eddy, and I am not a believer in Christian Science, but I say that mankind is simply forced, even against its will, to recognize the masterly aggressiveness, the unflagging zeal, the tireless persistency, the intellectual adroitness, and the intrepid boldness with which this New England woman has unfurled her standard, inscribed with her doctrines, and challenged combat with the established thought of the Christian world.

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