Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/117

Rh This church is one of the largest and seemliest in America, and in its size, if not in its aspect, it may be held to symbolize that faith which is so much a faith that all facts inhospitable to it are deemed by its professors not to exist at all. The building is of light stone, with a dome over two hundred and twenty feet high, a chime of bells, and one of the largest organs in the world. The architect has joined lightness and grace to solidity, and the edifice needs only an open space about it, such as one finds in the English cathedrals, to achieve its extreme of beauty. A sect that leaves such a monument has not lived in vain.

A remarkable thing in this building is that, although it cost two million dollars, it is not blanketed with debts and mortgages. Everything, even to the flagstones in front of it, is paid for, and subscriptions are not solicited. Here is an occasion for joy that marks it as different from almost all other of the Christian churches, where petitions for money are almost as constant as petitions for divine mercy.

The dedication of the new Mother Church of the Christian Scientists in Boston is not a matter of interest to that city alone, but to the nation; not to the nation alone, but to the world; not to this time alone, but to history.

The growth of this form of religious faith has been one of the marvels of the last quarter century. It is, in some respects, the greatest religious phenomenon of all history. That a woman should found a religious movement of international sway; that its followers should number