mesmerism, its very antipodes, is one of them.
Hitherto we have never, in a single instance of our
discovery, found the slightest resemblance between
mesmerism and metaphysics. No especial idiosyncrasy
is requisite to acquire a knowledge of metaphysical
healing; spiritual sense is more important to its
discernment than the intellect; and those who would
learn this science without a high moral standard of
thought and action, will fail to understand it until
they go up higher. Owing to our explanations
constantly vibrating between the same points, an irksome
repetition of words must occur; also the use of capital
letters, genders, and technicalities peculiar to the
science. Variety of language, or beauty of diction,
must give place to close analysis and unembellished
thought. “Hoping all things, enduring all
things,” to do good to our enemies, to bless
them that curse us, and to bear to the sorrowing and
the sick consolation and healing, we commit these pages
to posterity.
Mary Baker G. Eddy.
The Gospel narratives bear brief testimony even to
the life of our great Master. His spiritual
noumenon and phenomenon, silenced portraiture.
Writers, less wise than the Apostles, essayed in the
Apocryphal New Testament, a legendary and traditional
history of the early life of Jesus. But Saint
Paul summarized the character of Jesus as the model
of Christianity, in these words: “Consider
Him who endured such contradictions of sinners against
Himself. Who for the joy that was set before
Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is
set down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
It may be that the mortal life battle still wages,
and must continue till its involved errors are vanquished
by victory-bringing Science; but this triumph will
come! God is over all. He alone is our
origin, aim, and Being. The real man is not
of the dust, nor is he ever created through the flesh;
for his father and mother are the one Spirit, and his
brethren are all the children of one parent, the eternal
Good.
Any kind of literary composition was excessively difficult
for Mrs. Eddy. She found it grinding hard work
to dig out anything to say. She realized, at
the above stage in her life, that with all her trouble
she had not been able to scratch together even material
enough for a child’s Autobiography, and also
that what she had secured was in the main not valuable,
not important, considering the age and the fame of
the person she was writing about; and so it occurred
to her to attempt, in that paragraph, to excuse the
meagreness and poor quality of the feast she was spreading,
by letting on that she could do ever so much better
if she wanted to, but was under constraint of Divine
etiquette. To feed with more than a few indifferent
crumbs a plebeian appetite for personal details about
Personages in her class was not the correct thing,
and she blandly points out that there is Precedent
for this reserve. When Mrs. Eddy tries to be
artful—in literature—it is generally
after the manner of the ostrich; and with the ostrich’s
luck. Please try to find the connection between
the two paragraphs.—M. T.
