Page:Christian Science versus Pantheism.djvu/39

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MESSAGE FOR 1900
25

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” was first published. From that year the United States official statistics show the annual death-rate to have gradually diminished. Likewise the religious sentiment has increased; creeds and dogmas have been sifted, and a greater love of the Scriptures manifested. In 1895 it was estimated that during the past three years there had been more Bibles sold than in all the other 1893 years. Many of our best and most scholarly men and women, distinguished members of the bar and bench, press and pulpit, and those in all the walks of life, will tell you they never loved the Bible and appreciated its worth as they did after reading “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.” This is my great reward for having suffered, lived, and learned, in a small degree, the Science of perfectibility through Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Is there more than one Christ, and hath Christ a second appearing? There is but one Christ. And from everlasting to everlasting this Christ is never absent. In doubt and darkness we say as did Mary of old: “I know not where they have laid him.” But when we behold the Christ walking the wave of earth's troubled sea, like Peter we believe in the second coming, and would walk more closely with Christ; but find ourselves so far from the embodiment of Truth that ofttimes this attempt measurably fails, and we cry, “Save, or I perish!” Then the tender, loving Christ is found near, affords help, and we are saved from our fears. Thus it is we walk here below, and wait for the full appearing of Christ till the long night is past and the morning dawns on eternal day. Then, if sin and