Article January 12, 1918 Issue

When Jesus received word from Mary and Martha that...

The Christian Science Monitor

When Jesus received word from Mary and Martha that their brother Lazarus was sick, he abode two days still in the place where he was and then said to his disciples, "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." And the disciples said, "Lord, if he sleep, he shall do well." "Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead."

The disciples should have been familiar with the Old Testament use of the words asleep and awake for death and life. When Elisha sent his servant, Gehazi, to lay his staff on the face of the dead son of the Shunammite woman, the servant did as he was bidden, but returned to say, "The child is not awaked." If the disciples did not understand such language it was no wonder the people generally could not comprehend when Jesus said concerning the daughter of Jairus, "Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn, knowing that she was dead."

It would seem, however, that after the lapse of nineteen centuries the Christian world, at least, with all the study that has been given to the sayings of Jesus, would have been better prepared to receive the scientific statement of Truth. But when, pursuant to years of study and devotion to Scriptural research, Mary Baker Eddy, with the courage of her convictions, challenged the world in her "scientific statement of being," on page 468 of Science and Health, which begins: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all," the world generally laughed in derision. Only a few followers zealously took up her words and in daily conversation, and in public meetings as well, talked of the unreality of matter, the claims and beliefs of sickness, and the illusions of sin and death.

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The kindly spirit in which the speaker at Christ Church...
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