Mary Baker G. Eddy

“ While Christian Science, engaging the attention of philosopher and sage, is circling the globe, only the earnest, honest investigator sees through the mist of mortal strife this daystar, and whither it guides.
To live and let live, without clamor for distinction or recognition; to wait on divine Love; to write truth first on the tablet of one's own heart, — this is the sanity and perfection of living, and my human ideal. The Science of man and the universe, in contradistinction to all error, is on the way, and Truth makes haste to meet and to welcome it. ”

“ The world is asleep, lulled by stupefying beliefs, in the cradle of infancy dreaming away the hours. Entering upon an unknown eternity of Spirit, material sense would be like an outlaw escaping to a foreign land where he is doomed to an unlooked-for death. The footsteps of belief have not advanced man a single league toward immortality, and the unwillingness to learn man and God of science hold Christendom in chains. So much hypocrisy swells the catalogue of society that honesty or the demonstration of Truth is not desired and incurs the enmity of mankind. ”

“ It falls on the heart like the dew on the flower, — An infinite essence from tropic to pole, The promise, the home, and the heaven of Soul. Hope happifies life, at the altar or bower, And loosens the fetters of pride and of power; It comes through our tears, as the soft summer rain, To beautify, bless, and make joyful again, The harp of the minstrel, the treasure of time; A rainbow of rapture, o'erarching, divine; The God-given mandate that speaks from above, — No place for earth's idols, but hope thou, and love. ”

“ LEANING on the sustaining Infinite, to-day is big with blessings. The wakeful shepherd beholds the first faint morning beams ere cometh the full radiance of a risen day. So shone the pale star to the prophet-shepherds; yet it traversed the night, over to where, in cradled obscurity, lay the young child who should redeem mortals, and reduce to human understanding the way of salvation. Now, across a night of error, dawn the morning beams, and shines the guiding orb of Truth. The wise men are led to behold and follow the day star of Divine Science, as it repeats the eternal harmony. ”

“ The artist expresses himself in his picture when he has created it, and its only immortality is in him. The creations of Spirit are ever appearing and must ever continue to unfold, from the nature of their inexhaustible source. The seed is in itself; but Mind makes the tree, the fruit, and its seed. Mind is the multiplier, thoughts and ideas are the multiplicand, the universe, and man. But there is no intelligence in the thought, the seed, or the flower. Mind is the creator and Soul of all. Truth is the intelligence of the idea. ”

“ MY beloved brethren, methinks even I am touched with the tone of your happy hearts, and can see your glad faces, aglow with gratitude, chinked within the storied walls of The Mother Church. If, indeed, we may be absent from the body and present with the ever-present Love filling all space, time, and immortality — then I am with thee, heart answering to heart, and mine to thine in the glow of divine reflection. ”

“ Illusion, not law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, defaced the tablet of your mind with error, enfeebled your body.
Causation is Mind, not matter. The body but expresses mortal mind. You possess this body and you make it harmonious or discordant, according to the images of thought impressed upon it. You embrace the body in thought, and should delineate your thoughts in health, not in sickness. You should banish the thought of disease, the belief that matter holds you in mystery and slavery. As immortal, you have a perfect, indestructible form. ”

“ And which is most likely to reign when mind governs in both cases? and which has the advantage, Truth or error, to govern the result through mind and bring out harmony?
Called to the bed of death, what remedy have we in matter when all its remedies have failed? Mind must be our only resort at last, and should not be deemed the least of all power, as we shall learn from this startled moment. To break the dream of death, thought must waken from its slumber of belief and catch this trumpet-tone of Truth. There is no death, all is mind, there is no matter, — “he is not dead but sleepeth.” ”

“ I hope the heart that's hungry For things above the floor, Will find within its portals An item rich in store; That melancholy mortals Will count their mercies o'er, And learn that Truth and wisdom Have many items more; That when a wrong is done us, It stirs no thought of strife; And Love becomes the substance, As item, of our life; That every ragged urchin, With bare feet soiled or sore, Share God's most tender mercies, — Find items at our door. Then if we've done to others Some good ne'er told before, When angels shall repeat it, 'T will be an item more. ”

“ CREATION.
THE eternity of Truth is changing the universe. Thought expands into expression, as mortals shake off their swaddling-clothes. “Let there be light” is the perpetual demand of Truth and Love, changing chaos into order, and turning discord into the music of the spheres.
Progress takes off human shackles. The finite must yield to the Infinite. Advancing to a higher plane of action, thought rises from the material sense to the spiritual, from the mortal to the immortal, and from the personal to the impersonal. All things are created spiritually. Mind, not matter, is the Creator. ”

“ Love sends forth Her unselfish and enduring ideas, from the tiny grass growing beneath the foot of man, spreading for him soft carpets, and supplying food for fowl and beast, from the modest violet that lifts her blue eye to heaven and saith, “The meek shall inherit the earth,” the sheltering stone that tells of “the shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” up to the kindling sun, shining on all, glinting on the church-dome, glancing into the prison-cell, gliding into the sick-room, gilding the cot, brightening the flowers, beautifying the landscape, blessing the world. ”

“ The arrow that doth wound the dove Darts not from those who watch and love. If thou the bending reed wouldst break By thought or word unkind, Pray that his spirit you partake, Who loved and healed mankind: Seek holy thoughts and heavenly strain, That make men one in love remain. Learn, too, that wisdom's rod is given For faith to kiss, and know; That greetings glorious from high heaven, Whence joys supernal flow, Come from that Love, divinely near, Which chastens pride and earth-born fear. ”

“ The measurement of Life, by solar years, robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The rising sun of virtue and Truth marks the morning of being. Its manhood is the eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun. When a personal and material sense of beauty fades, the radiance of Spirit should dawn upon the enraptured sense with brighter glories.
Love never loses sight of beauty. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful. Man and woman, of riper years and larger lessons, are growing in beauty and immortality, in stead of lapsing into age and ugliness. ”