Page:The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany.djvu/367

Rh hating none. The purpose of its members is to subserve the interest of mankind, and to cement the bonds of Christian brotherhood, whose every link leads upward in the chain of being. The cardinal points of Christian Science cannot be lost sight of, namely — one God, supreme, infinite, and one Christ Jesus.

The Board of Lectureship is specially requested to be wise in discoursing on the great subject of Christian Science.

Along the lines of progressive Christendom, New Hampshire's advancement is marked. Already Massachusetts has exchanged Fast Day, and all that it formerly signified, for Patriots' Day, and the observance of the holiday illustrates the joy, grace, and glory of liberty. We read in Holy Writ that the disciples of St. John the Baptist said to the great Master, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not?” And he answered them in substance: My disciples rejoice in their present Christianity and have no cause to mourn; only those who have not the Christ, Truth, within them should wear sackcloth.

Jesus said to his disciples, “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting,” but he did not appoint a fast. Merely to abstain from eating was not sufficient to meet his demand. The animus of his saying was: Silence appetites, passion, and all that wars against Spirit and spiritual power. The fact that he healed the sick man without the observance of a material fast confirms this