Article September 25, 1909 Issue

IMMORTALITY

JESSE B. TWISS.

THE writer recently listened to an address by an eminent clergyman who, after referring to Wordsworth's ode on "Intimations of Immortality," declared that intimations are all we have,—that we possess no positive proof of immortality. This line of thought, trailing closely upon agnosticism, recalls to me the years when I, though trained to weigh legal evidence, sought vainly to find any preponderance of evidence as to immortality. The Bible indeed teemed with unqualified statements of immortality, but where was the proof that the Bible was true? I studied such "Intimations," "Apologies," and "Evidences" as I could readily find, but they only left uncertainty more deeply rooted.

There had arisen, however. during the youth of this clergyman and myself, a thinker, clear, disillusioned, and vigorous; she who today, crowned with the labors of many years, bears the honored name of Mary Baker Eddy. She, too, has asked: "What evidence of Soul or of immortality have you within mortality?" (Science and Health, p. 478). Yet this same revered woman has guided unnumbered people to experience the most convincing proofs of immortality. They have experienced these proofs not in the broad fields of belief in mortality, but by climbing steadfastly in the highway of immortality; not by dying, but by living; not by "vain repetitions," but by praying understandingly; not by intellectual search of "apologies," but by individually living the immortal life.

In illustration, I will say that I have sought to take the rules of Christian Science just as a boy should take his rules in arithmetic, or a cook directions for making a new cake, with a measure of faith that the rule is correct and a measure of confidence that I can apply the rule correctly. If the rule is true, and the work done correctly, the results should justify the rule. This is true justification by faith, wherein the works prove one's faith. Among my earlier proofs I remember the struggle for two days with what is called an ulcerated tooth. Because I did not do my work correctly during that time, the pain persisted; but the moment I remembered the correct way to work, and applied the rule, the pain ceased with startling abruptness, and the ulcer stopped its progress midway and vanished.

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