  My Beloved Brethren:—If a member of the church is inclined to be uncharitable, or to condemn his brother without cause, let him put his finger to his lips, and forgive others as he would be forgiven. One's first [5] lesson is to learn one's self; having done this, one will naturally, through grace from God, forgive his brother and love his enemies. To avenge an imaginary or an actual wrong, is suicidal. The law of our God and the rule of our church is to tell thy brother his fault and thereby help [10] him. If this rule fails in effect, then take the next Scrip- tural step: drop this member's name from the church, and thereafter “let the dead bury their dead,”—let silence prevail over his remains. If a man is jealous, envious, or revengeful, he will seek [15] occasion to balloon an atom of another man's indis- cretion, inflate it, and send it into the atmosphere of mortal mind—for other green eyes to gaze on: he will always find somebody in his way, and try to push him aside; will see somebody's faults to magnify under the lens that [20] he never turns on himself. What have been your Leader's precepts and example! Were they to save the sinner, and to spare his exposure so long as a hope remained of thereby benefiting him? [1] Has her life exemplified long-suffering, meekness, charity, purity? She readily leaves the answer to those who know her. [5] Do we yet understand how much better it is to be wronged, than to commit wrong? What do we find in the Bible, and in the Christian Science textbook, on this subject? Does not the latter instruct you that looking continually for a fault in somebody else, talking about it, [10] thinking it over, and how to meet it,—“rolling sin as a sweet morsel under your tongue,”—has the same power to make you a sinner that acting thus regarding disease has to make a man sick? Note the Scripture on this subject: “Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the [15] Lord.” The Christian Science Board of Directors has borne the burden in the heat of the day, and it ought not to be expected that they could have accomplished, without one single mistake, such Herculean tasks as they have [20] accomplished. He who judges others should know well whereof he speaks. Where the motive to do right exists, and the majority of one's acts are right, we should avoid referring to past mistakes. The greatest sin that one can commit against himself is to wrong one of God's “little [25] ones.” Know ye not that he who exercises the largest charity, and waits on God, renews his strength, and is exalted? Love is not puffed up; and the meek and loving, God anoints and appoints to lead the line of mankind's tri- [30] umphal march out of the wilderness, out of darkness into light. Whoever challenges the errors of others and cherishes [1] his own, can neither help himself nor others; he will be called a moral nuisance, a fungus, a microbe, a mouse gnawing at the vitals of humanity. The darkness in one's self must first be cast out, in order rightly to discern [5] darkness or to reflect light. If the man of more than average avoirdupois kneels on a stool in church, let the leaner sort console this brother's necessity by doing likewise. Christian Scientists preserve unity, and so shadow forth the substance of our sublime [10] faith, and the evidence of its being built upon the rock of divine oneness,—one faith, one God, one baptism. If our Board of Directors is prepared to itemize a report of the first financial year since the erection of the edifice of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, let it do so; othe
|
|
