Bible Study from May 20th, 2023

FLOWERS

Mirrors of the monarch
Whence the dewdrop is born,
Soft tints of the rainbow and skies —
Sisters of song,
What a shadowy throng
Around you in memory rise!

Far do ye flee,
From your green bowers free,
Fair floral apostles of love,
Sweetly to shed
Fragrance fresh round the dead,
And breath of the living above.

Flowers for the brave —
Be he monarch or slave,
Whose heart bore its grief and is still!
Flowers for the kind —
Aye, the Christians who wind
Wreaths for the triumphs o’er ill!

Pleasant View, Concord, N. H., May 21, 1904.

— from Poems, published 1910, by Mary Baker Eddy, page 25

---

“While Mrs. Eddy was talking with Adam Dickey, Mr. McLellan was explaining the dilemma he foresaw to William Rathvon.” Rathvon and McLellan conspired with Clifford P. Smith, then First Reader of the Mother Church, in a plan to tell Mrs. Eddy that they would commit her to an asylum if she did not sign their proposed new by-law establishing them as an executive committee over the Board of Directors, replacing Mrs. Eddy, giving them authority to supervise the Board of Directors, and to make or change any by-laws. They attempted to recruit Judge Septimus Hanna in their plan to usurp Mrs. Eddy’s leadership. He told them that they were to go to her and immediately confess their plan and their disloyalty to her, and if they didn’t, he would! They refused, claiming that they had progressed too far to turn back now. Judge Hanna told Mrs. Eddy. Shortly after she told her faithful student, Ira O. Knapp, one of the directors at the time, he passed on. “Mr. Knapp said he has a photostat of a letter Mr. Frye wrote and that Mrs. Eddy signed, where she said a cabal was formed, a triumvirate, to get themselves put above the Directors by having a change made in the Manual and thus to nullify the Manual.

— from The Healer, by David Keyston, page 174

---

In some gardens one finds only such flowers as have grown from seeds planted in the springtime. When the frosts come the leaves are withered, and when the year is again warmed by the sun, no green shoot comes up from the place where last year color rioted, unless once again the seed be sown. There are other gardens where flourish perennial growths. Should the gardener be gone for a year’s space, leaving no hand to tend his much-loved plants, they would still appear to greet the sun in the spring, and their blooms would open at the appointed time. The iris would disclose her royal purple, the fragrance of the shy lily-of-the-valley would pervade the tree-shaded corner, and like a string of pearls the white bells would lie upon the long green leaves. Roses, roses, roses, would be everywhere,—shell-pink like the hues of dawn, or those redder than flame that clamber in ruddy billows upon walls and trellises, or roses with a coloring which surpasses in beauty the finest gold. Perchance you have visited an old home whose tenants had long departed, and in the garden found, amoung weeds and decay, a June rose, perfect, exquisite. Then you have witnessed the wonder of perennial bloom offering its yearly beauty because of its own life and nature.

“The Perennial Bloom Of Truth” from Christian Science Sentinel, November 25, 1905 by Rev. William P. Mc Kenzie

---

Loving Our Leader, December 1988

“You will have to learn to love me more.” Mary Baker Eddy

At one point in the early years in the Chicago field, healing work suddenly came to a halt. This was most unusual as previously Chicago had been perhaps the finest field for healing in the country. The best healers, including those who had studied with Mrs. Eddy, could not heal. The situation became so alarming that a group was delegated to go to Pleasant View and request Mrs. Eddy’s help. Mr. Kimball, as their spokesman, told Mrs. Eddy about their difficulties in healing. She patiently listened to the problem and when their tale of woe was told, she said, “You will have to learn to love me more.” She said no more and left the room. The delegation returned to Chicago and related Mrs. Eddy’s message. They took the message to heart and the healing work was successful once again.

— from In Defense of Mary Baker Eddy and the Remnant of Her Seed by Paul Smillie, Preface

---

“Christian Science is susceptible of being made the repository for all the sins of the other two religions [Catholicism and Protestantism] in marked face and form, whereby the most aggravated and exaggerated and liberated powers of evil have full sway…. The woman has cast into these three measures of iniquity, the leaven that is fermenting them. Therefore, they, inherent in mortal mind, take vengeance on their destroyer. Alas for the masquerade of their friendship, of their gratitude, of their honesty, of their virtue, and especially of their humanity towards this woman. Does one human heart love her? No! It is all a farce. The carnal mind hates her, and deserts her, lies about her, steals from her, mocks her, betrays her, nails her to the cross and spits on her, saying ‘Come down from the cross.’ Then parts her seamless robe that has not one ridge of the three religions [Catholicism, Protestantism, and Christian Science] as interpreted by this trio of error-and casts lots for it. Rending it into rags it picks up the shorn glory and decks itself therewith in harlequin jacket. Not one of these three religions­ misused-is the Rock on which Christ, Truth, builds the church against which the gates of hell cannot prevail. And the last one is named the final one; therefore, it holds the most relentless war against the woman.” (Ess. p.54, e.a.)

from “Essays Ascribed to Mary Baker Eddy” in Essays and Other Footprints(the “Red Book”), by Mary Baker Eddy, page 54

---

(Revelation 18:22-23) Babylon is left desolate and powerless.

The sound of harpists, musicians, flutists, and trumpeters shall not be heard in you anymore. No craftsman of any craft shall be found in you anymore, and the sound of a millstone shall not be heard in you anymore. The light of a lamp shall not shine in you anymore, and the voice of bridegroom and bride shall not be heard in you anymore. For your merchants were the great men of the earth, for by your sorcery all the nations were deceived.

a. Shall not be heard… shall be found anymore… shall to be heard in you anymore… shall not shine in you anymore: In graphic and poetic language, John describes how the industry and commerce of Babylon will come to an end.

b. For by your sorcery all the nations were deceived: Sorcery is the Greek word pharmakia, which means, “to prepare drugs.” The lure of commercial Babylon is like a drug addiction, fed by deceptive advertising.

— from Study Guide for Revelation 18 by David Guzik

---

We can truly welcome the failures of all false systems to bring health and harmony to earth, for these very failures can teach but one lesson and that is, that the only real help comes from God.

“The Kingdom of Heaven Is at Hand” from Christian Science Journal, June 1905 by Clarence W. Chadwick

---