Judaism, enjoining the limited and definite form of a national religion, was not more the antithesis of Christianity than are our finite and material conceptions of Deity. Life is God; but we say that Life is carried on through principal processes, and speculate concerning material forces. Mind is supreme; and yet we make more of matter, and lean upon it for health and life. Mind, that governs the universe, governs every action of the body as directly as it moves a planet and controls the muscles of the arm. God grant that the trembling chords of human hope shall again be swept by the divine _Talitha cumi_, "Damsel, I say unto thee, arise." Then shall Christian Science again appear, to light our sepulchres with immortality. We thank our Father that to-day the uncremated fossils of material systems, already charred, are fast fading into ashes; and that man will ere long stop trusting where there is no trust, and gorging his faith with skill proved a million times unskilful. Christian Science has one faith, one Lord, one baptism; and this faith builds on Spirit, not matter; and this baptism is the purification of mind,--not an ablution of the body, but tears of repentance, an overflowing love, washing away the motives for sin; yea, it is love leaving self for God. The cool bath may refresh the body, or as compliance with a religious rite may declare one's belief; but it cannot purify his mind, or meet the demands of Love. It is the baptism of Spirit that washes our robes and makes them white in the blood of the Lamb; that bathes us in the life of Truth and the truth of Life. Having one Lord, we shall not be idolaters, dividing our homage and obedience between matter and Spirit; but shall work out our own salvation, after the model of our Father, who never pardons the sin that deserves to be punished and can be destroyed only through suffering. We ask and receive not, because we "ask amiss;" even dare to invoke the divine aid of Spirit to heal the sick, and then administer drugs with full confidence in their efficacy, showing our greater faith in matter, despite the authority of Jesus that "ye cannot serve two masters." Silent prayer is a desire, fervent, importunate: here metaphysics is seen to rise above physics, and rest all faith in Spirit, and remove all evidence of any other power than Mind; whereby we learn the great fact that there is no omnipotence, unless omnipotence is the _All_-power. This truth of Deity, understood, destroys discord with the higher and more potent evidences in Christian Science of man's harmony and immortality. Thought is the essence of an act, and the stronger element of action; even as steam is more powerful than water, simply because it is more ethereal. Essences are refinements that lose some materiality; and as we struggle through the cold night of physics, matter will become vague, and melt into nothing under the microscope of Mind.