“Our Father-Mother God’ all-harmonious, adorable One.  Thy kingdom is within us, Thou art ever-present.  Enable us to know—­as in heaven, so on earth—­God is supreme.  Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections.  And infinite Love is reflected in love.  And Love leadeth us not into temptation, but delivereth from sin, disease, and death.  For God is now and forever all Life, Truth, and Love.”

If I thought my opinion was desired and would be properly revered, I should say that in my judgment that is as good a piece of carpentering as any of those eleven Commandment—­experts could do with the material after all their practice.  I notice only one doubtful place.  “Lead us not into temptation” seems to me to be a very definite request, and that the new rendering turns the definite request into a definite assertion.  I shall be glad to have that turned back to the old way and the marks of the Spiral Twist removed, or varnished over; then I shall be satisfied, and will do the best I can with what is left.  At the same time, I do feel that the shrinkage in our spiritual assets is getting serious.  First the Commandments, now the Prayer.  I never expected to see these steady old reliable securities watered down to this.  And this is not the whole of it.  Last summer the Presbyterians extended the Calling and Election suffrage to nearly everybody entitled to salvation.  They did not even stop there, but let out all the unbaptized American infants we had been accumulating for two hundred years and more.  There are some that believe they would have let the Scotch ones out, too, if they could have done it.  Everything is going to ruin; in no long time we shall have nothing left but the love of God.

THE NEW UNPARDONABLE SIN

“Working Against the Cause.  Sec. 2.  If a member of this Church shall work against the accomplishment of what the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science understands is advantageous to the individual, to this Church, and to the Cause of Christian Science”—­out he goes.  Forever.

The member may think that what he is doing will advance the Cause, but he is not invited to do any thinking.  More than that, he is not permitted to do any—­as he will clearly gather from this By-law.  When a person joins Mrs. Eddy’s Church he must leave his thinker at home.  Leave it permanently.  To make sure that it will not go off some time or other when he is not watching, it will be safest for him to spike it.  If he should forget himself and think just once, the By-law provides that he shall be fired out-instantly-forever-no return.

“It shall be the duty of this Church immediately to call a meeting, and drop forever the name of this member from its records.”

My, but it breathes a towering indignation!

There are forgivable offenses, but this is not one of them; there are admonitions, probations, suspensions, in several minor cases; mercy is shown the derelict, in those cases he is gently used, and in time he can get back into the fold—­even when he has repeated his offence.  But let him think, just once, without getting his thinker set to Eddy time, and that is enough; his head comes off.  There is no second offence, and there is no gate open to that lost sheep, ever again.