Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/366

346 The nature of Christianity is peaceful and blessed; but in order to enter into the kingdom, the anchor of

hope must be cast beyond the veil of matter, in the Shekinah into which Jesus has passed before us; and this must come through the joys and triumphs of the righteous, as well as their sorrows and afflictions. Like our Master, we must get away from material sense, into the spiritual sense.

The God-inspired walk calmly on, though it be with bleeding footprints, and in the hereafter reap what they

now sow. The pampered hypocrite may have flowery pathway here, but he is sure to be pierced with sharper thorns hereafter.

The demonstration which Jesus gave of Truth and Love, by casting out error and healing the sick, completed

his earthly mission; but in the Christian Church this demonstration of healing was early lost, about three centuries after the crucifixion. No ancient school of philosophy ever taught or demonstrated the divine healing of Truth and Love.

Jesus foresaw the reception Christian Science must receive before it was understood, but this coldness

hindered him not. He fulfilled his God-mission, and then sat down at the right hand of the Father. Persecuted from city to city, his apostles still went about doing good deeds, for which they were maligned and stoned. The Truth taught by Jesus, the elders scoffed at. Why? Because it demanded more than they were willing to practise. It was enough for them to believe in a national Deity; but that belief, from their time to ours, has never made a disciple who could cast out error and heal the sick.