I think she once prized money for the ease and comfort
it could bring, the showy vanities it could furnish,
and the social promotion it could command; for we
have seen that she was born into the world with little
ways and instincts and aspirations and affectations
that are duplicates of our own. I do not think
her money-passion has ever diminished in ferocity,
I do not think that she has ever allowed a dollar that
had no friends to get by her alive, but I think her
reason for wanting it has changed. I think she
wants it now to increase and establish and perpetuate
her power and glory with, not to add to her comforts
and luxuries, not to furnish paint and fuss and feathers
for vain display. I think her ambitions have
soared away above the fuss-and-feather stage.
She still likes the little shows and vanities—a
fact which she exposed in a public utterance two or
three days ago when she was not noticing —but
I think she does not place a large value upon them
now. She could build a mighty and far-shining
brass-mounted palace if she wanted to, but she does
not do it. She would have had that kind of an
ambition in the early scrabbling times. She
could go to England to-day and be worshiped by earls,
and get a comet’s attention from the million,
if she cared for such things. She would have
gone in the early scrabbling days for much less than
an earl, and been vain of it, and glad to show off
before the remains of the Scotch kin. But those
things are very small to her now —next
to invisible, observed through the cloud-rack from
the dizzy summit where she perches in these great
days. She does not want that church property
for herself. It is worth but a quarter of a million—a
sum she could call in from her far-spread flocks to-morrow
with a lift of her hand. Not a squeeze of it,
just a lift. It would come without a murmur;
come gratefully, come gladly. And if her glory
stood in more need of the money in Boston than it
does where her flocks are propagating it, she would
lift the hand, I think.
She is still reaching for the Dollar, she will continue
to reach for it; but not that she may spend it upon
herself; not that she may spend it upon charities;
not that she may indemnify an early deprivation and
clothe herself in a blaze of North Adams gauds; not
that she may have nine breeds of pie for breakfast,
as only the rich New-Englander can; not that she may
indulge any petty material vanity or appetite that
once was hers and prized and nursed, but that she
may apply that Dollar to statelier uses, and place
it where it may cast the metallic sheen of her glory
farthest across the receding expanses of the globe.
PRAYER
A brief and good one is furnished in the book of By-laws.
The Scientist is required to pray it every day.
THE LORD’S PRAYER-AMENDED
This is not in the By-laws, it is in the first chapter
of Science and Health, edition of 1902. I do
not find it in the edition of 1884. It is probable
that it had not at that time been handed down.
Science and Health’s (latest) rendering of
its “spiritual sense” is as follows:
Copyrights
Christian Science from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
