Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/156

128 desire to say this; and words are not vain when the depth of desire can find no other outlet to liberty. “Therefore. . . let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works.” (Hebrews 6: 1.)

A coroner's inquest, a board of health, or class legislation is less than the Constitution of the United States, and infinitely less than God's benign government, which is “no respecter of persons.” Truth crushed to earth springs spontaneously upward, and whispers to the breeze man's inalienable birthright — Liberty. “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” God is everywhere. No crown nor sceptre nor rulers rampant can quench the vital heritage of freedom — man's right to adopt a religion, to employ a physician, to live or to die according to the dictates of his own rational conscience and enlightened understanding. Men cannot punish a man for suicide; God does that.

Christian Scientists abide by the laws of God and the laws of the land; and, following the command of the Master, they go into all the world, preaching the gospel and healing the sick. Therefore be wise and harmless, for without the former the latter were impracticable. A lack of wisdom betrays Truth into the hands of evil as effectually as does a subtle conspirator; the motive is not as wicked, but the result is as injurious. Return not evil for evil, but “overcome evil with good.” Then, whatever the shaft aimed at you or your practice may be, it will fall powerless, and God will reward your enemies according to their works. Watch, and pray daily that evil suggestions, in whatever guise, take no root in your thought nor bear fruit. Ofttimes examine yourselves, and