Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/252

224 Scientists see or understand the importance of that demand at the moment, when human wisdom is inadequate to meet the exigencies of the hour and when they should wait on the logic of events?

I respectfully call your attention to this demand, knowing a little, as I ought, the human need, the divine command, the blessing which follows obedience and the bane which follows disobedience. Hurried conclusions as to the public thought are not apt to be correctly drawn. The public sentiment is helpful or dangerous only in proportion to its right or its wrong concept, and the forward footsteps it impels or the prejudice it instils. This prejudice the future must disclose and dispel. Avoid for the immediate present public debating clubs. Also be sure that you are not caught in some author's net, or made blind to his loss of the Golden Rule, of which Christian Science is the predicate and postulate, when he borrows the thoughts, words, and classification of one author without quotation-marks, at the same time giving full credit to another more fashionable but less correct.

My books state Christian Science correctly. They may not be as taking to those ignorant of this Science as books less correct and therefore less profound. But it is not safe to accept the latter as standards. We would not deny their authors a hearing, since the Scripture declares, “He that is not against us is on our part.” And we should also speak in loving terms of their efforts, but we cannot afford to recommend any literature as wholly Christian Science which is not absolutely genuine.

Beloved students, just now let us adopt the classic saying, “They also serve who only stand and wait.” Our Cause is growing apace under the present persecution