But when Christian Science arose, the thought of the world’s scientific leaders had become materialistically “lopsided,” and this condition can never long continue.  There must be a righting-up of the mind as surely as of a ship when under stress of storm it is ready to capsize.  The pendulum that has swung to one extreme will surely find the other.  The religious sentiment in women is so strong that the revolt was headed by them; this was inevitable in the nature of the case.  It began in the most intellectual city of the freest country in the world—­that is to say, it sought the line of least resistance.  Boston is emphatically the women’s paradise, numerically, socially, indeed, every way.  Here they have the largest individuality, the most recognition, the widest outlook.  Mrs. Eddy we have never seen; her book has many a time been sent to us by interested friends and out of respect to them we have fairly broken our mental teeth over its granitic pebbles.  That we could not understand it might be rather to the credit of the book than otherwise.  On this subject we have no opinion to pronounce, but simply state the fact.

We do not, therefore, speak of the system it sets forth, either to praise or blame, but this much is true; the spirit of Christian Science ideas has caused an army of well meaning people to believe in God and the power of faith, who did not believe in them before.  It has made a myriad of women more thoughtful and devout; it has brought a hopeful spirit into the homes of unnumbered invalids.  The belief that “thoughts are things,” that the invisible is the only real world, that we are here to be trained into harmony with the laws of God, and that what we are here determines where we shall be hereafter—­all these ideas are Christian.

The chimes on the Christian Science temple in Boston played “All hail the power of Jesus’ name,” on the morning of the dedication.  We did not attend, but we learn that the name of Christ is nowhere spoken with more reverence than it was during those services, and that He is set forth as the power of God for righteousness and the express image of God for love.

(The New Century, Boston, February, 1885.)

ONE POINT OF VIEW.—­THE NEW WOMAN.

We all know her—­she is simply the woman of the past with an added grace—­a newer charm.  Some of her dearest ones call her “selfish” because she thinks so much of herself she spends her whole time helping others.  She represents the composite beauty, sweetness, and nobility of all those who scorn self for the sake of Love and her handmaiden Duty—­of all those who seek the brightness of truth not as the moth to be destroyed thereby, but as the lark who soars and sings to the great sun.  She is of those who have so much to give they want no time to take, and their name is legion.  She is as full of beautiful possibilities as a perfect harp, and she realizes that all the harmonies of the universe are in herself, while her own soul plays upon magic strings the unwritten anthems of love.  She is the apostle of the true, the beautiful, the good, commissioned to complete all that the twelve have left undone.  Hers is the mission of missions—­the highest of all—­to make the body not the prison, but the palace of the soul, with the brain for its great white throne.