On page 7 of "Christian Healing," Mary Baker Eddy, referring to the new tongue, writes, "It is the language of Soul instead of the senses; it translates matter into its original language, which is Mind, and gives the spiritual instead of the material signification." How gracious, how eloquent, how transforming, was the new tongue, as borne witness to by Jesus; what joy and strength it brought to all those who heard and in their turn learned to speak it! When men listened to him they knew, even though some might deny it, might rebel at it, that this was the new tongue, this was the language of Soul. Never, it was admitted, had man been heard to speak as he spake. And when he addressed disease and sin, men were healed, redeemed, uplifted.

To hear and then obey the new tongue is to understand the true meaning of prayer; it is to take no forward step, to contemplate no undertaking which is not based on divine wisdom and actuated by divine Love. To accept Truth alone as his ideal, and to determine to live it at all times, makes great demands upon the individual. It calls for alertness in thought and speech; it calls for humility and obedience; it necessitates the laying down of personal sense with its boasting, its pride, its self-depreciations, the laying aside of all humanly governing desires with their undermining weaknesses and self-indulgences. The new tongue voices no subterfuge, no prevarications; it speaks only to bless, whether in rebuke or praise, in denial of error, in appreciation of Truth.

The promise which their Master had given his disciples in his last interview with them before he ascended, that they would speak with new tongues, was symbolized with dramatic effect on the day of Pentecost. This was but the outward evidence of what had been going on in their hearts and lives since they first began to understand that what he spake and what they heard were the words not of matter but of Spirit, not of human reasoning, but of divine knowing. And now in their turn they learned after his farewell benediction that when they told the lame to rise up and walk, they walked; the blind to see, the sick to be well, the imprisoned to be free, the signs did follow. Words were fraught with spiritual significance, and the outcome was the reshaping, the redeeming of men's lives.

The new tongue pierces the denseness of mortal unbelief; it does not hesitate or question; it bears witness to the presence of the Christ, expressed in faith and understanding. The state of thought of the individual, whether he knows it or not, will always affect his outward speech; his word is but the indication of his character. To him whose thought is ill-defined, conflictive, enfeebled by lack of vision and resolution, the signs promised by the Master will be lacking. Only he who knows that what he speaks is with the authority of Mind—is the language of Soul—can be assured that the spiritual and not the material signification of life is being established in his words and deeds.

"The greatest reform, with almost unutterable truths to translate, must wait to be transfused into the practical and to be understood in the 'new tongue,'" writes our Leader on page 306 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany." She knew how profound in its meaning was the charge laid upon those who had been told, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." Symbolic of the universality of that mission was the day of Pentecost, when, filled with the Holy Ghost, the disciples of the Master "began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." What a revelation of the diversity of Truth; what a continual reminder of the eternal nature of the Christ! The translation of these "almost unutterable truths," that they may heal and deliver from every form of evil, calls for vision, for consecration, that to all men, wherever, whoever, they be, the knowledge and comfort of a universal brotherhood may be brought.

Jesus words, healing, exhorting, setting forth man's unity with God, reveal the infinite availability and adaptability of Truth. Whereas the utterances of the world through the centuries—with what vociferation and plausibility have they been the mouthpiece of unbelief and materiality! Thus the creature has continued to sicken, to sin, to fight, to destroy, and to be destroyed.

In the middle of the nineteenth century some, and then ever more, awoke to the fact that the new tongue was again being spoken. It came, as the Master had promised, with signs following. It brought with it not only promise but fulfillment; it brought healing and regeneration and deliverance. Christian Science had been born to earth.

Truth, now transfused into the practical, must be the inspiration and impulse to united, universal action in this hour of the world's greatest need of proof that Love is willing and all-powerful to deliver. Of the new tongue, with signs following, our Leader writes on page 25of "Miscellaneous Writings": "It gives God's infinite meaning to mankind, healing the sick, casting out evil, and raising the spiritually dead. Christianity is Christlike only as it reiterates the word, repeats the works, and manifests the spirit of Christ."

Evelyn F. Heywood