Dedication of Mrs. Eddy's Gift Message on the occasion of the dedication of Mrs. Eddy's gift, July 17, 1904 MARY BAKER EDDY          Beloved Brethren: — Never more sweet than to-day, seem to me, and must seem to thee, those words of our loved Lord, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end." Thus may it ever be that Christ rejoiceth and comforteth us. Sitting at his feet, I send to you the throbbing of every pulse of my desire for the ripening and rich fruit of this branch of his vine, and I thank God who hath sent forth His word to heal and to save.          At this period, the greatest man or woman on earth stands at the vestibule of Christian Science, struggling to enter into the perfect love of God and man. The infinite will not be buried in the finite; the true thought escapes from the inward to the outward, and this is the only right activity, that whereby we reach our higher nature. Material theories tend to check spiritual attraction — the tendency towards God, the infinite and eternal — by an opposite attraction towards the temporary and finite. Truth, life, and love are the only legitimate and eternal demands upon man; they are spiritual laws enforcing obedience and punishing disobedience.          Even Epictetus, a heathen philosopher who held that Zeus, the master of the gods, could not control human will, writes, "What is the essence of God? Mind." The general thought chiefly regards material things, and keeps Mind much out of sight. The Christian, however, strives for the spiritual; he abides in a right purpose, as in laws which it were impious to transgress, and follows Truth fearlessly. The heart that beats mostly for self is seldom alight with love. To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science.          It is of less importance that we receive from mankind justice, than that we deserve it. Most of us willingly accept dead truisms which can be buried at will; but a live truth, even though it be a sapling within rich soil and with blossoms on its branches, frightens people. The trenchant truth that cuts its way through iron and sod, most men avoid until compelled to glance at it. Then they open their hearts to it for actual being, health, holiness, and immortality.          I am asked, "Is there a hell?" Yes, there is a hell for all who persist in breaking the Golden Rule or in disobeying the commandments of God. Physical science has sometimes argued that the internal fires of our earth will eventually consume this planet. Christian Science shows that hidden unpunished sin is this internal fire, — even the fire of a guilty conscience, waking to a true sense of itself, and burning in torture until the sinner is consumed, — his sins destroyed. This may take millions of cycles, but of the time no man knoweth. The advanced psychist knows that this hell is mental, not material, and that the Christian has no part in it. Only the makers of hell burn in their fire.          Concealed crimes, the wrongs done to others, are millstones hung around the necks of the wicked. Christ Jesus paid our debt and set us free by enabling us to pay it; for which we are still his debtors, washing the Way-shower's feet with tears of joy.          The intentional destroyer of others would destroy himself eternally, were it not that his suffering reforms him, thus balancing his account with divine Love, which never remits the sentence necessary to reclaim the sinner. Hence these words of Christ Jesus: "Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out." (Luke 13 : 27, 28.) He who gains self-knowledge, self-control, and the kingdom of heaven within himself, within his own consciousness, is saved through Christ, Truth. Mortals must drink sufficiently of the cup of their Lord and Master to unself mortality and to destroy its erroneous claims. Therefore, said Jesus, "Ye shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with."          We cannot boast ourselves of to-morrow; sufficient unto each day is the duty thereof. Lest human reason becloud spiritual understanding, say not in thy heart: Sickness is possible because one's thought and conduct do not afford a sufficient defence against it. Trust in God, and "He shall direct thy paths." When evil was avenging itself on its destroyer, his preeminent goodness, the Godlike man said, "My burden is light." Only he who learns through meekness and love the falsity of supposititious life and intelligence in matter, can triumph over their ultimatum, sin, suffering, and death.          God's mercy for mortal ignorance and need is assured; then who shall question our want of more faith in His "very present help in trouble"? Jesus said: "Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness."          Strength is in man, not in muscles; unity and power are not in atom or in dust. A small group of wise thinkers is better than a wilderness of dullards and stronger than the might of empires. Unity is spiritual cooperation, heart to heart, the bond of blessedness such as my beloved Christian Scientists all over the field, and the dear Sunday School children, have demonstrated in gifts to me of about eighty thousand dollars, to be applied to building, embellishing, and furnishing our church edifice in Concord, N. H.          We read in Holy Writ: "This man began to build, and was not able to finish." This was spoken derisively. But the love that rebukes praises also, and methinks the same wisdom which spake thus in olden time would say to the builder of the Christian Scientists' church edifice in Concord: "Well done, good and faithful." Our proper reason for church edifices is, that in them Christians may worship God, — not that Christians may worship church edifices!          May the loving Shepherd of this feeble flock lead it gently into "green pastures . . . beside the still waters." May He increase its members, and may their faith never falter — their faith in and their understanding of divine Love. This church, born in my nativity, may it build upon the rock of ages against which the waves and winds beat in vain. May the towering top of its goodly temple — burdened with beauty, pointing to the heavens, bursting into the rapture of song — long call the worshipper to seek the haven of hope, the heaven of Soul, the sweet sense of angelic song chiming chaste challenge to praise him who won the way and taught mankind to win through meekness to might, goodness to grandeur, — from cross to crown, from sense to Soul, from gleam to glory, from matter to Spirit.   Excerpted from The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, pp. 159-163

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