Christian Science -- Controversial literature; Eddy, Mary Baker, 1821-1910
I think she once prized money for the ease and comfort it could bring,
the showy vanities it could furnish, and the social promotion it could
command; for we have seen that she was born into the world with little
ways and instincts and aspirations and affectations that are duplicates
of our own. I do not think her money-passion has ever diminished in
ferocity, I do not think that she has ever allowed a dollar that had no
friends to get by her alive, but I think her reason for wanting it
has changed. I think she wants it now to increase and establish and
perpetuate her power and glory with, not to add to her comforts and
luxuries, not to furnish paint and fuss and feathers for vain display.
I think her ambitions have soared away above the fuss-and-feather stage.
She still likes the little shows and vanities--a fact which she
exposed in a public utterance two or three days ago when she was not
noticing--but I think she does not place a large value upon them now.
She could build a mighty and far-shining brass-mounted palace if she
wanted to, but she does not do it. She would have had that kind of an
ambition in the early scrabbling times. She could go to England to-day
and be worshiped by earls, and get a comet's attention from the
million, if she cared for such things. She would have gone in the early
scrabbling days for much less than an earl, and been vain of it, and
glad to show off before the remains of the Scotch kin. But those things
are very small to her now--next to invisible, observed through the
cloud-rack from the dizzy summit where she perches in these great days.
She does not want that church property for herself. It is worth but a
quarter of a million--a sum she could call in from her far-spread flocks
to-morrow with a lift of her hand. Not a squeeze of it, just a lift. It
would come without a murmur; come gratefully, come gladly. And if her
glory stood in more need of the money in Boston than it does where her
flocks are propagating it, she would lift the hand, I think.
She is still reaching for the Dollar, she will continue to reach for it;
but not that she may spend it upon herself; not that she may spend it
upon charities; not that she may indemnify an early deprivation and
clothe herself in a blaze of North Adams gauds; not that she may have
nine breeds of pie for breakfast, as only the rich New-Englander can;
not that she may indulge any petty material vanity or appetite that once
was hers and prized and nursed, but that she may apply that Dollar to
statelier uses, and place it where it may cast the metallic sheen of her
glory farthest across the receding expanses of the globe.
PRAYER
A brief and good one is furnished in the book of By-laws. The Scientist
is required to pray it every day.
THE LORD'S PRAYER-AMENDED
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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