The scroll is on exhibition in the window of J.C.  Derby’s jewelry store.

* * * * *

[The Union Signal, Chicago]

[Extract]

THE NEW WOMAN AND THE NEW CHURCH

The dedication, in Boston, of a Christian Science temple costing over two hundred thousand dollars, and for which the money was all paid in so that no debt had to be taken care of on dedication day, is a notable event.  While we are not, and never have been, devotees of Christian Science, it becomes us as students of public questions not to ignore a movement which, starting fifteen years ago, has already gained to itself adherents in every part of the civilized world, for it is a significant fact that one cannot take up a daily paper in town or village—­to say nothing of cities—­without seeing notices of Christian Science meetings, and in most instances they are held at “headquarters.”

We believe there are two reasons for this remarkable development, which has shown a vitality so unexpected.  The first is that a revolt was inevitable from the crass materialism of the cruder science that had taken possession of men’s minds, for as a wicked but witty writer has said, “If there were no God, we should be obliged to invent one.”  There is something in the constitution of man that requires the religious sentiment as much as his lungs call for breath; indeed, the breath of his soul is a belief in God.

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 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.