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CSEC ON-LINE REFERENCE LIBRARY |
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MARY BAKER EDDY
Mary as the mother of Jesus became the first scientific interpreter of the Christ idea, of Mary as the highest interpreter of man and God, of man as woman which represents God's highest manhood. C.A.L. Totten, U.S.A., in his excellent work The King’s Daughters, writes, "It was the creation of womanhood that completed the equation which even yet we have not fully solved." His prophecies are grounded in Science. They reiterate the sacred Scriptural records and the logical syllogisms in Science and Health where the demonstration of being starts with the manhood of being and rises to womanhood as the Christ idea and the Revelator's vision thereof, wherein the Spirit and the bride say, come. Were Luther, Calvin, Melanchthon, Wesley, and thousands of other eminent personages walking adown the dim vista of nineteen centuries fools? Does not Truth demand both the letter and Spirit of Christian Science whereby to instruct mankind into the demonstrable understanding of the divine Principle and rule of Christ healing? Now, stating Christian Science incorrectly must, does, prevent your demonstrating it. Error, contradicting Truth, is tempting Christian Scientists to form misconceptions of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd appearing of Christ and the relatives thereof. I warn you that this evil intent, if carried out, will take away your understanding of Christian Science and check the unfolding of Truth at this period. "Oh, no," answers the zealot, "Truth has come to stay." I reply, "It never came, 'twas ever here. But you can thrust it out of your own mind and that of others by misconceiving it and misstating it. Then how can it stay in your consciousness or anybody else's who does this?" If you lose your correct statement of the Principle and idea of Science, you cannot demonstrate the Principle, and without this demonstration of healing the sick on the Principle you claim to demonstrate, how long would the claim to Christian Science deserve to stay among men? Your textbook vindicates the survival of the fittest, the immortality of Truth and the mortality of error. Did Jesus teach the science of his healing and his students record it so plainly that the wayfaring man could catch the meaning until a woman was chosen by God to discover it and interpret it to mankind? What is the second coming of Christ? It is another era of the world’s awakening, a higher advent in human consciousness of the spiritual idea, the true character of God. This idea of God neither comes nor goes, for it is inseparable from its divine Principle, the ever-present I AM. But the human concept of this idea has its periods of light and shade. Christian Scientists are not Second Adventists believing in the finite appearing of finite good. Every loyal Scientist understands that the second coming of Christ is the next higher, hence, more spiritual revelation of God's character. The Christian era presented the first tangible idea of God's character by its inspired man, Jesus. The era of Christian Science ushers in through woman the second appearing of His character and this from the necessity of His nature as the Father and Mother of all, the creator, even the complete and ever-present idea of God. Therefore, this era comes not through Jesus but through Mary, the type of womanhood and mother of its first and forever appearing which divine Science alone can give. The third appearing of the spiritual idea of the character of God will present but the disappearing of all else, and establish the supremacy of Spirit which obliterates the human sense of the divine, takes away all sense of matter and reveals the final fact that the idea, Christ, is not a materialized or finite man or woman, but is the infinite concept of infinite Mind. Now, are you disappointed and declare, "She hath taken away my Lord and I know not where she hath laid him?" I have not taken away the real but the false conception of the individual God, the individual man, and the personality and merits of Jesus, but I have endeavored to dematerialize and unlimit your human dream of the divine, your material sense of the spiritual, your finite views of the infinite, and to give you a scientific concept of Jesus and his mission, of the nature of Christ, of the mission of Mary as the mother of Jesus, the scientific interpreter of true manhood, womanhood and the character of God. Jesus' work on earth is done, for he as an individual finished his glorious earthly career and sat down at the right hand of the Father—left earth for heaven—in other words, he entered into the infinite sense of Life and its manifestation, never more to be manifest as flesh. This was the consummation of his earth mission and it needs no reappearing or repetition to crown its glory. All this is not the material Jesus, nor Mary, nor Martha, but the spiritual idea dwelling forever in the bosom of the Father-Mother God, because this idea is the link in being's chain which unites indissolubly the Father and son, man and God. The on-rushing centuries are declaring this idea higher and higher in the scale of being and will ere long yield to the sense of its ascendant glory. From Essays on Christian Science Ascribed to Mary Baker Eddy compiled by G. C. Carpenter (Providence, 1961), p. 146
Note: The compiler of this volume, Gilbert C. Carpenter, Jr., CSB, whose father had been a member of Mrs. Eddy's household, writes in the introduction: "The article 'The Second Advent' was copied directly from a reproduction of the original manuscript in Mrs. Eddy's handwriting.'" The article was also reprinted in what is often known as the Carpenter (or R.F. Oakes) "Red Book," Essays and Other Footprints, p. 47. Reference to this article was made as item "No. 208." in a list of items that were delivered to the Christian Science Board of Directors and receipted for over the signature of their Attorney, C. Augustus Norwood, on December 18, 1924. See The Christian Science Standard, Vol. 9, No. 3, p. 14 |
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