Dawn

Our April topic is "Easter messages - especially from the New Testament" and it made me wonder where the name Easter comes from. This is from Britannica:

There is now widespread consensus that the word derives from the Christian designation of Easter week as in albis, a Latin phrase that was understood as the plural of alba (“dawn”) and became eostarum in Old High German, the precursor of the modern German and English term. The Latin and Greek Pascha (“Passover”) provides the root for Pâques, the French word for Easter. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Easter-holiday

Dawn is a lovely way to think about Easter.

I decided to open my Bible to John. My eyes fell upon John 12:42 which records that many of the chief rulers believed Jesus but were too afraid to go public.

Chapter 12 reports on Jesus’ visit to siblings Mary, Martha and Lazarus in Bethany followed by his “triumphal entry” into Jerusalem where he announces that “the hour is come” (v. 23).

John 12: 37-43 (KJV) explains the scene:

But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him:

That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?

Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,

He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him.

Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue:

For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God. [emphasis added] 

The Message (Eugene Petersen) paraphrases verses 42 and 43:

On the other hand, a considerable number from the ranks of the leaders did believe. But because of the Pharisees, they didn't come out in the open with it. They were afraid of getting kicked out of the meeting place. When push came to shove they cared more for human approval than for God's glory. 

The truth of what Jesus had spoken and demonstrated had dawned on their thought, but the pull of world opinions was apparently a force they failed to resist.

Julie Swannell

Needed: clarity of mind

Robert Peel has painstakingly recorded the different personalities of some early students of Christian Science. Many had great promise but fell by the wayside, some lured by visions of power and prestige; some mixing it up with Eastern thought – preferring “ascetic withdrawal from the world” to “commitment to active living” (p. 280, Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial); some drawn to theosophy; some conflating it with “New Thought optimism” (ibid. p. 283); some falling into hypocrisy and selfishness; others founding their own churches like the Church of the Divine Unity (Scientist) – see page 305.

This tireless biographer points out the difference between “wishful thinking” and “exacting fact” (p. 305) and quotes Mary Baker Eddy's "new pamphlet Rudiments and Rules of Divine Science" published in 1887:

           A slight divergence is fatal in Science. Like certain Jews, whom St. Paul had hoped to convert from mere motives of self-aggrandizement to the love of Christ, these so-called schools are clogging the wheels of progress, by blinding people to the true character of Christian Science,--its moral power, and its divine efficacy to heal.

            The true understanding of Christian Science Mind-healing never originated in pride, rivalry, or the deification of self. The Discoverer of this Science could tell you of timidity, of self-distrust, of friendlessness and toil, under which she needed miraculous vision to sustain her, when taking the first footsteps in this Science.

            Mary Baker Eddy: The Years of Trial pp 281-282

An unrepentant student claimed that if Mrs. Eddy “had no more monopoly on Christian Science than the first writer of a textbook on mathematics has a monopoly on that subject” (p. 318). Peel responds –

           A captious critic might reply that theoretically any number of people could deduce Newton’s theory of gravitation from the same facts which led Newton to it, but that a “restatement” of it by a high-school boy who had been studying it in an elementary physics course might justly be considered a trifle redundant, not to say questionable.

It occurs to me that everyone has access to all the notes of the musical scale but it was only Beethoven who wrote the Ninth Symphony and to whom the credit will always be given.

Whatever the criticism or confusion or enmity or disloyalty, Peel points out the ‘the villain, from Mrs. Eddy’s point of view, was [not the people, but]… the human mind’s resistance to the impersonal demands of truth…” (p. 319).

And yet, other students captured the essence of this Science and stayed the course. Peel describes Stephen A. Chase, Joseph Armstrong, and Edward Bates as “men of superior ability” (p. 296). 

Additionally, two men “would stand before the general public as Christian Scientists more prominently than anyone save Mrs. Eddy herself” (p. 297): Alfred Farlow and Edward A. Kimball. These men shared the “qualities of humility, common sense, and breadth of outlook, but Kimball brought to Christian Science a large clarity of mind which made his service to the growing movement almost unique” (p. 298). Peel applauds the “spiritual power and logical persuasiveness” of his lectures which drew “overflow audiences” (p. 299).

Annie Macmillan Knott -- "a tiny, feminine figure with a voice deep as a man's and a heart stout as a lion's" (p. 301) provides an example of one who rose "to the altitude of true womanhood" (p. 302) to fulfil lecturing duties.

How grateful we are for current faithful lecturers, practitioners and teachers of Christian Science who are holding the banner aloft with meekness and might. 

Julie Swannell

It's all about love

James Henry Wiggin* was a big help to Mrs. Eddy in “sprucing up” the text of Science and Health. However, he had added quotations from other authors, as for instance in the chapter epigraphs. Mrs. Eddy later dispensed with these, except for Martin Luther’s “Here I stand. I can do no otherwise; so help me God! Amen!” now found on page 268 of Science and Health.

I am reminded that literary people are frequently inclined to quote previous literary authors, it seems to me, to “keep the ball rolling.” Peel says she was “stripping the book down to basic Christian Science and eliminating the Victorian gingerbread” (Peel, p. 381).

I find the following point very interesting. On page 401, Peel writes about Mrs. Eddy’s work on revising Science and Health:

In the fiftieth edition she divided the chapter “Prayer and Atonement” into two separate and enlarged chapters. They had not yet been placed at the beginning of the book, where they would later go as the best possible introduction to the metaphysical topics that followed, but they already showed Mrs. Eddy's deepening conviction that the letter of Christian Science could be understood only through the spirit of Christ.

Mrs. Eddy’s exceptional expression of love is illustrated in her student Janet Colman’s** reminiscences –

I can see one thing truthfully that if I were asked today after all my experience with our Leader [1914] which was the greatest of them to me I would say this: I always found her loving her enemies, always ready to do them good, always would see those who had injured her if she could help them even before one who had been loving and kind to her.” [See Note 90, page 402.]

Now. I would love to share something from an article by Michael Mooslin in the March 3, 2025 Christian Science Sentinel titled Me, we, and them. The article mentions Mary Baker Eddy’s approach to church participation. I shall copy the whole paragraph:

According to a reminiscence by an early student of Christian Science, when asked what she would like to do if she were active in church work, Mrs. Eddy answered, “to serve on the Lesson Committee.” (This committee of The Church of Christ, Scientist, prepares the weekly Bible Lessons published in the Christian Science Quarterly, which are studied daily by students of Christian Science and then read aloud as the Sunday sermon in The Mother Church and all of its branches.) Mrs. Eddy explained that we don’t attend church to worship God but to express Him. “We study these lessons six days,” she continued, “then we go to Church to express God for the world—to give the world a treatment” (William Coffman, Memoirs of a Christian Scientist, 1955, p. 3).

 Joyce Voysey

Ed.

*See Robert Peel’s Mary Baker Eddy: Years of Trial, p. 379-385.

**There is a lovely photo of Colman in the centre photographs section.