Article February 12, 1921 Issue

Pentecost

EDITH E. COHEN

It is very interesting to note how in the Old Testament Pentecost was held in commemoration of the children of Israel being delivered from servitude to the Egyptians and of the freedom they experienced through reaping the fruits of their labors, which culminated in the gift of the law obtained by Moses, who, having seen sufficiently clearly, received the truth and gave to their waking thought the guidance from God. This Pentecostal power was continually being manifested by some great seer, either prophet, king, or judge, who was given the power and ability to lead the children of Israel from their ignorant ways through the understanding of God, but the people often seemed too blinded in materiality to take full advantage of their opportunities. The Old Testament is one long example of such experiences. John the Baptist, the messenger who urged repentance, was still more enlightened, and foretold the coming of Jesus the Christ. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy makes it very clear that the descent of the Holy Ghost came with the understanding of Jesus' teaching. In the paragraph which bears the marginal heading "Pentecost repeated" (p. 43) she says: "The magnitude of Jesus' work, his material disappearance before their eyes and his reappearance, all enabled the disciples to understand what Jesus had said. Heretofore they had only believed; now they understood. The advent of this understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy Ghost,—that influx of divine Science which so illuminated the Pentecostal Day and is now repeating its ancient history."

When Christ Jesus foretold that the Comforter would teach all things and bring all of his sayings to the remembrance of the many, he awakened a spiritual activity which has gradually been lifting thought to his prophecies. The works which he did and promised that others afterwards should do even more fully are being fulfilled in the manner of God's appointing, through a little book which has been given to the world through His servant, Mary Baker Eddy. This book, the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is again bringing "that influx of divine Science which so illuminated the Pentecostal Day and is now repeating its ancient history." Are we not again listening to the message from God, but this time by means of divine Science, the Holy Ghost, which is leading us to "an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens"?

The fulfillment of the promise is clearly prophesied by Mrs. Eddy in Miscellany (p. 239), where she says: "The millennium is a state and stage of mental advancement, going on ever since time was. Its impetus, accelerated by the advent of Christian Science, is marked, and will increase till all men shall know Him (divine Love) from the least to the greatest, and one God and the brotherhood of man shall be known and acknowledged throughout the earth."

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