Article February 25, 1911 Issue

THE LECTURES

with contributions from Mrs. O.N. Guldlin, Benjamin F. Davis, William C. Kaufman, R.G. Ashe, Harry Emerson

The theme of the lecture of William D. McCrackan, M.A., at the Majestic Theater Sunday afternoon [Jan. 8] was "Christian Science: A Religion of Progress." The audience was a large one. The speaker was introduced by Mrs. O. N. Guldlin, one of the prominent clubwomen of the city, who spoke in part as follows,—

When I was asked to introduce the speaker this afternoon, the question came to me, "What has Christian Science meant to me?" Since it has come into my life my greatest help has been that it has enabled me to live on an entirely different basis. The next greatest help has been that it has straightened out many of my theological conceptions. Immanuel Kant says something like this, "Man has many delusions. He can only remove those delusions as he gains more knowledge, and then the delusions fall away." So it has seemed to me that one delusion after another has gone down. In the first place, I am grateful that Mrs. Eddy saw fit to call this "Christian Science." Music has its science; arithmetic has its science. We can never evade this science and arrive at correct conclusions. We can never evade the science of life. It will not permit us to do an injustice to any one else and arrive at the science of living. If in the solitude of our home life we meditate and study on these problems until we realize the divine Principle, then can we realize the solution. As we look at the world's standard of morality, the ordinary concept of man, we are liable to be deluded.

Last summer, up in Canada, I was riding along watching the trees, looking for a perfect specimen. I saw an overcrowded condition, not one tree that apparently realized the concept of a perfect tree. Yet we all know how magnificent a tree is when it reaches its full growth. And so I realized that man did not realize his spiritual concept. The licentiousness of the nation reveals the worldly concept of man, and I turned in eternal gratitude to Mrs. Eddy, since she had raised my concept to a more spiritual standard, to realize that, even if all else failed, yet that standard remained true, above the average concept which we see realized. Bearing this concept eternally in mind gives us something to work toward, and we begin to realize that God's creation is spiritual, it is harmonious, it is eternal. If we do not see this wonderful majesty of being, it is because something is wrong in us, and the greatest work of our lives is, after all, self-regeneration—that evolution which starts for perfection.

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