PREFACE.

This volume contains scintillations from press and pulpit—­utterances which epitomize the story of the birth of Christian Science, in 1866, and its progress during the ensuing thirty years.  Three quarters of a century hence, when the children of to-day are the elders of the twentieth century, it will be interesting to have not only a record of the inclination given their own thoughts in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but also a registry of the rise of the mercury in the glass of the world’s opinion.

It will then be instructive to turn backward the telescope of that advanced age, with its lenses of more spiritual mentality, indicating the gain of intellectual momentum, on the early footsteps of Christian Science as planted in the pathway of this generation; to note the impetus thereby given to Christianity; to con the facts surrounding the cradle of this grand verity—­that the sick are healed and sinners saved, not by matter, but by Mind; and to further scan the features of the vast problem of eternal life, as expressed in the absolute power of Truth, and the actual bliss of man’s existence in Science.

Mary Baker Eddy.

February, 1895.

TO

The dear two thousand and six hundred Children,

WHOSE CONTRIBUTIONS

Of $4,460 were devoted to the Mother’s Room in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston,

THIS UNIQUE BOOK IS TENDERLY DEDICATED BY

Mary Baker Eddy.

DEDICATORY SERMON.

By Rev.  Mary Baker Eddy,

First pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Mass., Delivered Jan. 6, 1895.

Text—­Psalms xxxvi, 8.  “They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.”

A new year is a nursling, a babe of time, a prophecy and promise clad in white raiment, kissed—­and encumbered with greetings—­redolent with grief and gratitude.

An old year is time’s adult, and 1893 was a distinguished character, notable for good and evil.  Time past and time present, both, may pain us, but time improved is eloquent in God’s praise.  For due refreshment garner the memory of 1894; for if wiser by reason of its large lessons, and records deeply engraven, great is the value thereof.

  Pass on returnless year! 
  The path behind thee is with glory crowned;
  This spot whereon thou troddest was holy ground;
          Pass proudly to thy bier!