The Lectures
Allston, Mass. (auspices of The Mother Church).—William R. Rathvon, lecturer; introduced by Leon M. Abbott, who said in part:—
There is today among thinking men and women a general and growing recognition that the world's feverish and never ceasing pursuit of health and happiness has been in ways that are devious, vain, and profitless. It is becoming more and more apparent that the craving and intense striving for material wealth and gain and worldly power has only resulted in shattered hopes or fleeting joys. The terrible tragedy of war, reckoning its successes on the one side or the other by the number of human beings who are killed or the destruction accomplished, is bringing home to us all a quickened sense of how utterly futile and worse than worthless are such means for securing abiding peace or righteous determination of the differences between men and nations.
The constantly shifting sands of medical theories and practice have weakened the hope or destroyed the confidence of unnumbered thousands struggling for release from the bondage of sickness. The poor sinner tries in vain to break his shackles in a world where evil seems an eternal reality and good to have no transcendent power. Encompassing doubts and fears attest a lack of faith and trust in God even on the part of those who profess to be His servants and followers.
These are some of the confronting conditions of the hour. To those of little faith, to the tired searchers after health and happiness, to those with whom carnal weapons have not availed, to all who would know the truth that makes men free, Christian Science bears a message of vital and practical import. It tells us not of a man-made God, but of a God-made man, perfect in health and holiness and knowing no other sovereignty than that of Love.
Webster Groves, Mo. (Society).—Virgil O. Strickler, lecturer; introduced by John Porter Henry, who said in part:—
When Jesus went about Galilee and Judæa he showed the people that his religion would cast out devils and heal all manner of diseases. Wherever he went his chief ministry was healing the sick, showing the value of his teachings in solving the problems of life; and it is plain from the gospels that he fully expected his followers to do likewise. This is evidenced, for example, by his rebuke to his disciples, his students, when a certain man brought a sick son to him for healing and advised him that the disciples had failed to effect a cure. Jesus called them a "faithless and perverse generation" for not having done the work, and told them that their failure was caused by their unbelief, their lack of faith.
It is this same religion of Jesus that the churches of today are laboring earnestly and sincerely to perpetuate; but if the Master characterized his students as a "faithless and perverse generation" for not applying their religion to the healing of a so-called incurable disease, what would he say today of a generation which had entirely ruled out of his religion the healing of the sick? Christian Science claims that the Christianity of Jesus is necessarily as sound and unimpaired, and as available today for every human need, as it was when he went about all Galilee.
Manchester, N. H. (First Church).—William W. Porter, lecturer; introduced by Edmund Bremen Gearhart, Ph.D., pastor First Unitarian Church, who said in part:—
Go with me for a moment into the remote past. There is great excitement in Jerusalem. A lame man, known to all the city because he had been begging at one of the most frequented entrances to the temple, had suddenly been healed by Peter and John, disciples of the Jesus whom the hierarchy had recently crucified. The marvel is in every one's mouth. Hastily the Sanhedrin, the highest court in Judæa, is called together, and Peter and John are summoned to make their defense concerning "the good deed done to the impotent man." Such is the boldness and sincerity of these two that the council can say nothing against them, especially as they see the man who was healed standing there, so after a brief executive session they discharge the disciples with the warning "not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus." But they, declaring that they cannot but speak the things which they have seen and heard, go forth to proclaim their message as earnestly as ever. Again they are summoned before the tribunal; again they must defend themselves. But this time their life is at stake, since the council was minded to slay them, until one, Gamaliel by name, offered the memorable advice, "Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God."
Such I believe is the attitude of the progressive modern world, of whatever creed, toward Christian Science. Certainly it is as true today as in the days of Jesus, that men do not "gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles," and that "by their fruits ye shall know them."
Brooklyn, N. Y. (First Church).—John W. Doorly, lecturer; introduced by Campbell MacCulloch, who said in part:—
No problem confronting humanity has bulked so large in the minds of men as that of the escape from evil. All are vitally concerned with the discovery of some way to offset the attacks of poverty, sin, and disease. Christianity as it exists today is based upon the conviction that God can rescue the unfortunate; yet Christian people assert that the greatest rarity of their orthodox religions is answered prayer, and confess that the man who rests his hopes upon God's actual answer to prayer is looked upon as a fanatic. God is in heaven, say these religionists, but man is here upon the earth, and there seems no certain method of establishing the connection between them.
At the lowest ebb of the spiritual life, when gross materialism was threatening to swamp humanity, at the shortest span of human existence, came Mrs. Eddy with the discovery that the spiritual laws employed by Jesus are available today and can be directed toward the salvation of men from the ills that have beset them. For fifty years Christian Science has been proving its words by it works.
