Books by Mary Baker Eddy

COMMUNION, JUNE 4, 1899
page 613

COMMUNION, JUNE 4, 1899

My Beloved Brethren: - Looking on this annual assemblage
of human consciousness, - health, harmony, growth,
grandeur, and achievement, garlanded with glad faces,
willing hands, and warm hearts, - who would say to-day,
"What a fond fool is hope"? The fruition of friendship,
the world's arms outstretched to us, heart meeting heart
across continents and oceans, bloodless sieges and tearless
triumphs, the "well done" already yours, and the
undone waiting only your swift hands, - these are
enough to make this hour glad. What more abounds
and abides in the hearts of these hearers and speakers,
pen may not tell.
Nature reflects man and art pencils him, but it remains
for Science to reveal man to man; and between these lines
of thought is written in luminous letters, O man, what
art thou? Where art thou? Whence and whither? And
what shall the answer be? Expressive silence, or with
finger pointing upward, - Thither! Then produce thy
records, time-table, log, traveller's companion, et cetera,
and prove fairly the facts relating to the thitherward, -
the rate of speed, the means of travel, and the number
en route. Now what have you learned? The mystery
of godliness - God made "manifest in the flesh," seen
of men, and spiritually understood; and the mystery of
iniquity - how to separate the tares from the wheat,
that they consume in their own fires and no longer

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kindle altars for human sacrifice. Have you learned to
conquer sin, false affections, motives, and aims, - to be
not only sayers but doers of the law?
   Brethren, our annual meeting is a grave guardian. It
requires you to report progress, to refresh memory, to
rejuvenate the branches and to vivify the buds, to bend
upward the tendrils and to incline the vine towards the
parent trunk. You come from feeding your flocks, big
with promise; and you come with the sling of Israel's
chosen one to meet the Goliaths.
   I have only to dip my pen in my heart to say, All honor
to the members of our Board of Lectureship connected
with The Mother Church. Loyal to the divine Principle
they so ably vindicate, they earn their laurels. History
will record their words, and their works will follow
them. When reading their lectures, I have felt the touch
of the spirit of the Mars' Hill orator, which always
thrills the soul.
   The members of the Board of Education, under the
auspices of the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, have
acquitted themselves nobly. The students in my last
class in 1898 are stars in my crown of rejoicing.
   We are deeply grateful that the church militant is
looking into the subject of Christian Science, for Zion
must put on her beautiful garments - her bridal robes.
The hour is come; the bride (Word) is adorned, and lo,
the bridegroom cometh! Are our lamps trimmed and
burning?
   The doom of the Babylonish woman, referred to in Revelation,
is being fulfilled. This woman, "drunken with the
blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs
of Jesus," "drunk with the wine of her fornication,"

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would enter even the church, - the body of Christ, Truth;
and, retaining the heart of the harlot and the purpose
of the destroying angel, would pour wormwood into the
waters - the disturbed human mind - to drown the
strong swimmer struggling for the shore, - aiming for
Truth, - and if possible, to poison such as drink of the
living water. But the recording angel, standing with

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