Signs of the Times

[From a review by Crawfurd Price, in the Sunday Times, London, England]

[Those] who have studied her [Mrs. Eddy's] writings, and are more than superficially acquainted with the movement she sponsored, will be content to remember that the Master himself, on whom she relied for her inspiration, was reviled and persecuted and finally crucified between two malefactors. . . . Her influence was, and is, spiritual. She will be known by her works. And of her works it must be said that in a few short years her interpretation of Christ [Jesus'] message has become one of the greatest (it may well prove the greatest) religious forces in the world. She expounded a creed which for hundreds of thousands has solved the paradox of orthodox Christianity—that a wise, beneficnet, and all-powerful God, or Deity, or Principle, could permit the sin, misery, and suffering that besmirches the human conception of creation.


[From the Courier, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia]

Opinions will differ and continue to differ about Mrs. Mary Baker Eddy and Christian Science, but it cannot be denied that she has given to the world a growing and virile religion, and whatever opinions may be held about that religion and its doctrines its devotees are loyal and law-abiding people. Mrs. Eddy also gave to the world one of its greatest daily newspaper, The Christian Science Monitor, the greatest newspaper of the United States, and one of the sanest and best proportioned newspapers that is printed in the English language. Those are some achievements about which there is no room for controversy; and, no matter what one's views of Christian Science may be, its Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, is unquestionably one of the compelling figures in the religious history of the nineteenth century.


[James H. Grier, D.D., in the United Presbyterian Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania]

Each Wednesday at noon in a downtown auditorium [in Los Angeles], lasting for one hour and closing promptly at one o'clock, is held a prayer meeting. The auditorium seats one thousand eight hundred people in opera seats. Unless one arrives before high noon he cannot gain admittance. Failing of admittance twice, I sat in the auditorium one hot morning in September at eleven thirty. Surely there would be no capacity gathering on such a day! But the multitudes came and the doors were closed. The worshipers were most reverent; while they waited they read from the Scripture and their textbooks. The service opened with a hymn. There followed a long Scripture passage from Jeremiah and an explanatory reading from the textbook [Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy]. Followed the Lord's Prayer and a half hour of voluntary testimonies to the divine healing of sin and sickness. They sang again and the service ended.

This is not a solitary prayer meeting. It is repeated every Wednesday evening in every Christian Science church in Los Angeles. The great churches are filled and overflow into the larger downtown auditoriums. For special occasions there are no indoor auditoriums in Los Angeles sufficiently large to hold the throng. They are well-dressed, well-behaved congregations. In culture and intelligence I would guess them above the average. Among them were Negroes, Mexicans, Filipinos, Chinese. There were many Jews.

But why do these people come? I found no such meetings for prayer in the orthodox churches, nor have I ever known any such in western Pennsylvania. There is nothing in any of these services of entertainment; there is no special music. . . . There are no formal sermons, no audible prayers save the Lord's Prayer, no innovations of any kind. And yet they have something—something which the neighboring orthodox churches do not have. It is a something which the neighboring orthodox churches do not have. It is a something which draws the great multitudes of strong men and women, and seemingly satisfies them. They come and go and come again. In a downtown Reading Room I sat at noon. I watched them come and go. They were largely young people. They were business people, clerks and shop girls from the district. They came in quietly, sat down to the long tables, and read the lesson for the day. They read ten or fifteen minutes and were gone—not one or two or three, but a continuous procession. There are more than thirty of these Reading Rooms in Los Angeles. So we ask ourselves the question, Why do they come? What attracts the multitudes to . . . the churches of Christian Science in Los Angeles? Obviously they are seeking in their own way the divine presence; but why do we not experience the same enthusiastic search in our own orthodox churches? And very obviously there is more than a seeking here, there is a finding; for they go away satisfied, and they come again.


[Governor Morgan F. Larson, as quoted in the New Jersey Courier, Toms River, New Jersey]

The eternal truths set forth in the Scriptures have been man's inspiration and comfort for ages past, and are now the foundation of his hope for the spiritual and material betterment of mankind. I, therefore, heartily indorse any movement which has for its goal the encouragement of Scriptural study and the bringing of men's lives into harmony with the truths thus revealed.


[Dr. H. P. Newsholme, as quoted in the Gazette, Birmingham, England]

The fundamental difficulty in a ministry of spiritual healing concerns not so much the agent as the recipient of that ministry. It is inevitable that many of those who seek spiritual healing do so primarily for healing of the body itself, and not for healing of the spirit. When the church is so deeply spiritual that those who come for healing come only because of the inescapable attraction of its spiritual life, the divine power will spread from those ministering to those ministered to in a healing wave which, by healing of spirit, will heal body also.


[Rev. T. M. Stevenson, in the Columbia Record, South Carolina]

Speaking for the Southern Presbyterian Church, in which I am a minister, we claim to honor the Bible as the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and we make New Testament precept and example the peculiar revelation of the proper activities of the church. Yet, so far as I have observed, the above text ["Is any sick among you? . . . the prayer of faith shall save the sick," James 5:14, 15] is held in lightest esteem, and one who attempts to act upon it is regarded as fanatic.

Glancing up and down in this fifth chapter of St. James, verse after verse is punctuated by Presbyterian "Amens." Be patient. Grudge not one against another. Swear not. Confess your faults. These are accepted as true and binding expressions of the will of God. But, when a method of procedure is mapped out for the healing of the sick, . . . by the officials of the church, that method is discredited. From a common-sense point of view, this is an eclecticism out of harmony with Presbyterian veneration for God's Word, and at least a gesture of contempt for His program of deliverance handed down to the church. . . .

Can it be that in our zeal to prove that this is not an age of miracles, by our lack of faith we have bound the hands of God? Can it be that in our denunciation of others who pick and choose what they would believe from the Word of God, we are overlooking beams in our own eyes? Can it be that we are wrong, and that God will heal the sick when faith summons the elders of the church, who pray and anoint with oil?


[From the New-Church Messenger, New York, New York]

How mistaken we are when we think that there are no outward manifestations from our thinking! And yet, how often we act as if we believed our thoughts were merely our own concern, secret and without result. Society requires of us a certain restraint, a certain amount of politeness of behavior. So outwardly we conform when inwardly our thoughts are very different. We speak politely to others although inwardly we are accusing and condemning them. We bottle up inside us those troublesome thoughts that we cannot safely express, and we think—if we think about it at all—that it does not matter what our thoughts really are if only we can control our tongues. Sometimes we even pride ourselves on our remarkable self-restraint!

Are we not like ostriches with our heads in the sand? We certainly do not believe that other people can have evil thoughts without results. How foolish of us to believe that we can. We know how plainly love and charity toward one's fellows show in the face, actually changing the lines of the countenance until we have the beautiful serenity we see in some of the faces of the aged! And how inevitably we know when we are in the presence of such a thinker!

It is certainly easier to control our actions than our thoughts, but control of our thoughts is more effective. If our hearts hold only love and charity for others, our actions will take care of themselves.


[Miss Marjory Stocking, as quoted in the Utica Daily Press, New York]

One thing that interests me about the life of Christ [Jesus] is his indifference to public opinion. It seems to me when we confine ourselves to golden phrases and sufficiently disguise what we have to say we have public opinion on our side. But when we are bold enough to make ourselves clear, the chances are the pharisees of our day consider us dangerous and guilty of stirring up the people.

Nine chances out of ten we submit to the pressure of public opinion, saying we must go slow, we must educate. I believe we stand in great danger of losing tremendous spiritual power. Jesus never compromised with the world. The crying need of the world to-day is for courageous Christians who will follow him uncompromisingly.


[Rabbi Barnett R. Brickner, as quoted in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio]

For me, prayer is not an effort made to change God, but ourselves. It is the mind of the worshiper, not God, that needs changing. In prayer I do not seek to bend the mind of God to the measure of our selfish ambitions and trivial aims. But I seek to lift our minds to the measure and the will of God.

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April 25, 1931
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