Herbert Knox Smith, commissioner of corporations, in a summary of his findings in the investigation of the lumber industry, shows these facts: The concentration of a dominating control of our standing timber in a comparatively few enormous holdings, steadily tending toward a central control of the lumber industry; vast speculative purchase and holding of timber land far in advance of any use thereof; an enormous increase in the value of this diminishing natural resource, with great profits to its owners.
The
notion is generally held that many of the pleasures of this life, including those which we most keenly enjoy, are sinful; that is, they violate some law which governs man's being.
During
schooldays, while a nominal student of Christian Science and depending solely upon it for physical help, the writer found little time or inclination for religious reading, as the hours seemed filled to overflowing with college work and college play.
Any
careful observer can hardly fail to see that the world's belief in causation is largely on the side of evil, and that its sense of effect is proportionately manifested in disaster, disease, and distress.
There
are moments when one is tempted to believe that fear and discord are besieging one very closely, moments when one's "Get thee behind me, Satan," is too feebly uttered to be of immediate avail, and indeed when it may sound more like an expression of fear that error may prolong its unwelcome visit.
When
we first heard of Christian Science in our home, the remark was made to us by a friend, "But how can you become Christian Scientists, when there is no reading-room where you live, and no one to explain the text-book to you?
It
is the chamber o'er the city gate,The watch-tower, whence the tidings of good cheerOr earnest warnings sound, for those who hearThe call of Truth, and for its coming wait.
Christian Science is, as a matter of fact, the effort to reestablish primitive Christianity, and primitive Christianity consisted not merely in preaching the gospel, but in healing the sick, and by healing the sick is understood, in Christian Science, not simply the overcoming of disease and pain, but the destruction of poverty and misery, of sorrow and sin,—in short, of all conditions which are inharmonious and so contrary to divine law.
Christian Science teaches that spiritual power, reflected from God, is amply sufficient to overcome all beliefs in the power of matter and the actuality of disease, but the demonstration of this truth is measured by the growth of the individual consciousness in the understanding of the real man and in the disappearance of the fears and false beliefs of generations back.
Some one has said that "prayer is the soul's sincere desire, uttered or unexpressed;" and it is true that the honest desire to know God, good, is a necessary precedent to that knowledge of the power and presence of divine Mind which Christian Science reveals as the only real power and presence.
Every now and then some individual or paper uses the word "imagined" in connection with a remark about Christian Science, implying that the members of that church "imagine" a great many things.
As one reads the variety of opinion expressed by your many correspondents in their assaults upon what they quite honestly believe Christian Science to be, and notes how much of this criticism is clearly contradictory,—one writer objecting, perhaps, to Christian Science for being just the very thing which another has assailed it for not being,—one feels a deep sense of gratitude that through it all, like some stately liner on an angry sea, the law of good, Christian Science, pursues her unswerving course, and that one has the good fortune to be even a steerage passenger upon that boat.
There seems to be a very strong inclination on the part of many who know nothing about Christian Science or its modus operandi, to charge up to it, with very little if any investigation, all occurrences that happen out of the ordinary course of events.
To
the student of Christian Science there is food for reflection in the method adopted by the Master when the disciples of John questioned him to know if he really was the long-expected Messiah.
It
was a clear, cool day without, so that an overcoat and a brisk gait were called for, and yet the atmosphere of the conservatory we had entered was summerlike and we found ourselves in the midst of a revelry of bloom.
I have tried many times to express my deep sense of gratitude for the blessings I have received as the result of an earnest study of Christian Science.
The
eyes of new-born babe, first opening,See not the world, the forms of man and beast,Distinguish not the distances, but bringOne thought by which the new life is increased;"Let there be light,"And on that light the eyes rejoicing feast.
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