Page:Miscellaneous Writings.djvu/229



ELOVED STUDENTS: — In thanking you for your gift of the pretty pond contributed to Pleasant View, in Concord, New Hampshire, I make no distinction between my students and your students; for here, thine becomes mine through gratitude and affection.

From my tower window, as I look on this smile of Christian Science, this gift from my students and their students, it will always mirror their love, loyalty, and good works. Solomon saith, “As in water face answereth to face, so the heart of man to man.”

The waters that run among the valleys, and that you have coaxed in their course to call on me, have served the imagination for centuries. Theology religiously bathes in water, medicine applies it physically, hydrology handles it with so-called science, and metaphysics appropriates it topically as type and shadow. Metaphysically, baptism serves to rebuke the senses and illustrate Christian Science.

First: The baptism of repentance is indeed a stricken state of human consciousness, wherein mortals gain severe views of themselves; a state of mind which rends the veil that hides mental deformity. Tears flood the eyes,