Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/132

104 authority. I have had no other guide in the strait and narrow way of Truth.

Jewish pagans thought that the learned St. Paul, the Mars' Hill orator, the canonized saint, was a “pestilent fellow,” but to-day all sorts of institutions flourish under the name of this “pestilent fellow.” That epithet points a moral. Of old the Pharisees said of the great master of metaphysics, “He stirreth up the people.” Because they could find no fault in him, they vented their hatred of Jesus in opprobrious terms. But what would be thought to-day of a man that should call St. Paul a “pest,” and what will be thought to-morrow of him who shall call a Christian Scientist a “pest”? Again, what shall be said of him who says that the Saviour of men, the healer of men, the Christ, the Truth, “stirreth up the people”?

It is of the utmost concern to the world that men suspend judgment and sentence on the pioneers of Christianity till they know of what and of whom these pioneers speak. A person's ignorance of Christian Science is a sufficient reason for his silence on the subject, but what can atone for the vulgar denunciation of that of which a man knows absolutely nothing?

On November 21, 1898, in my class on Christian Science were many professional men and women of the highest talents, scholarship, and character in this or any other country. What was it that brought together this class to learn of her who, thirty years ago, was met with the anathema spoken of in Scripture: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake”? It was the healing of the sick, the saving of sinners, the works