Editorial December 7, 1912 Issue

A VITAL FAITH

Annie M. Knott

In Mrs. Eddy's wonderful address, given in Central Music Hall, Chicago, in 1888, to an assemblage of many thousands, she said, "In no other one thing seemed Jesus of Nazareth more divine than in his faith in the immortality of his words. He said, 'Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away;' and they have not" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 99). These words of our revered Leader were recalled by the writer the evening before our Thanksgiving service, as she went from one department to another of our publishing house and witnessed the unusual activity called forth by the Thanksgiving edition of the Monitor. It was deeply interesting to see the big presses turning out some fifty thousand copies per hour, and it made one think of those early days in the history of the Christian Science movement when a heroic woman stood alone, gazing across the seemingly impassable gulf which separated the Christ-healing from the Christianity of the present age, and then with prophetic vision beholding the gulf spanned by the revelation of Christian Science.

Well might one pause and ponder the import to humanity of Mrs. Eddy's sublime courage in offering to the world anew the message of Truth for the giving of which Jesus of Nazareth had been crucified; but her faith linked itself to his faith, and she firmly believed that the hour had come when the mountains of ignorance, superstition, and fear should be removed and "cast into the sea," even as the Master had said. Did she count the cost at that early day of thus witnessing to the truth? Who can tell? It is enough to know that she pressed bravely forward with the message, and today the whole world is listening because the signs follow, and newly enkindled faith in God and His Christ is linked close to the works which he said must witness to true discipleship.

This and much more came to thought as the printing-presses were left behind and a little group went to a large upper room where at least a hundred volunteers were at work, wrapping the papers and sending off the mail-sacks. It was well worth while to stand back and look at these men with coats doffed, toiling at a late hour as if for dear life. They were men from the business world and professional activity, but their faces were lighted up with the joy of unselfish and loving service for humanity, the glow of the universal brotherhood for which the Monitor stands. At one end of the long room stood a man whose healing in Christian Science has borne witness for many years to the ever-present power of Christ, Truth. He was keeping tally as the heavy mail-bags were passed to the elevator, the name of one state being quickly followed by that of another. Then it was "Alaska," and Isaiah's words came quickly to mind: "The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God."

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