TAMPERING WITH HOLY WRIT

[rv.ros...@gmail.com]

On Tue Sep 27, 2005 9:29 am, Dr. David James Nolan
wrote on another board the following:

Most Scientists are entirely unaware of the fact that never once,
throughout that portion of Mrs. Eddy's life-time, when she was
producing an enormous proliferation of literary works, beginning with,
"The Science of Man," in April, 1870, and carrying directly on through
to her last officially published and released copy of, "Message to The
Mother Church, June 1902," on November 13, 1910, Mrs. Eddy neither
turned to nor did she rely upon either her Church,
or The Christian Science Publishing Society, to carry out the
enormously important work of the publishing of her writings which she
purposed to be available to all humanity. Thus, to this day, at its
Annual Convention, the American Publishers' Guild continues to
identify Mary Baker Eddy as having been the most successful
self-publicist ever known to have existed throughout the history of
the United States!

Mrs. Eddy did not confer her trust to either the Church or to the
Publishing Society to carry out this most monumentally important
aspect of her life-mission. What she did do, however, was to enter
into contractual agreements with independent Publisher's Agents whom
she exclusively engaged thoroughout her life-time, to carry out the
private printing and distribution of all of her writings.

At the time she departed, her privately contracted Publisher's Agent
was Mr. Allison V. Stewart. Mr. Stewart served Mrs. Eddy faithfully
for many years. He obediently and meticulously implemented her every
wish, and he personally oversaw the actual manual labor that went into
the printing and the binding of her prolific amount of literary
publications. These literary publications were contracted out to two
of New England's most experienced and highly renowned printing and
book-binding firms. One was Plimpton Press; the other was Cambridge
Press, both of which were located across the Charles River from
Boston, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When Mrs. Eddy completed the task of selecting the testimonies that
were to be included within the final chapter, "Fruitage," of
"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures", she gathered them
together and presented them to Mr. Stewart. Each testimony carried a
number which she had applied beginning with 'one' and proceeding
upwards. However, she withheld one testimony from the large group of
testimonies she had selected, and she instructed Mr. Stewart to
request the printer to arrange the laying out of the type in such a
fashion so as to provide for page 700 to be completely *full* of
print, down to the very bottom of the page. And, upon that page was to
appear that one testimony that Mrs. Eddy had withheld from out of the
envelope that contained all the others. Thus, the final testimony,
which was the one she specifically designated as being the last, is
the one that appears today within the altered edition of the textbook,
on page 698, titled, "A Grateful Testimony."

To understand the symbolic meaning behind Mrs. Eddy's hand picked
final testimony, we must be familiar with the instruction given to us
by the prophet, Isaiah, wherein we are told, "Declaring the end from
the beginning . . . ." Isa. 46.10. Thus, to glean the Christianly
scientific interpretation and importance of that which Mrs. Eddy has
so strategically placed at the end of her textbook, we
must return to the very beginning of the textbook in order to
understand the monumental import of Mrs. Eddy's actual and final hand
picked testimony!

Turning to page vii in the Preface of our textbook, we see the divine
manifesto opening with with following:

"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with
blessings. The wakeful shepherd beholds the first faint morning beams,
ere cometh the full radiance of a risen day. So shone the pale star to
the prophet shepherds; . . . ." Herein lies the information that is
needed by anyone who is truly wondering about the true spiritual
significance of Mrs. Eddy's hand-picked testimony which she fully
intended to be the one that would conclude her sacred writ.

Where, one must wonder, was the shepherd when he beheld the morning's
first faint beam? And what mental quality equipped and prepared the
shepherd to actually catch the morning's first faint beam? In order to
actually behold the "first" of the morning's ever proliferating beams,
mustn't the shepherd have been in and at a place which we read about
later in the textbook where it discloses, "The darkest hour precedes
the dawn"? S&H 96:11. Therefore, is it not entirely correct to
conclude that the shepherd who beholds the "FIRST faint morning beam,"
must have been enveloped within the most intensely pitch dark
hour of the night? If such is the case, and we have absolutely no
reason to doubt the veracity of what the textbook tells us, then does
not this fact place an enormous amount of importance on the word,
"wakeful?"

Science enables us to understand that the 'density' of the darkness
is never so great as to prevent or impair the 'intensity' of our
wakefulness, our conscious receptivity to good which Science
identifies as being the "advanced idea." Therefore, was it not
absolutely essential for the shepherd to be "wakeful" even during that
period of time which the textbook describes as being "The darkest hour
[that] precedes the dawn" in order that he actually qualify, or be
prepared, to behold "the FIRST faint morning beams?"

Notice what happens to the "wakeful" shepherd with the on-coming, or
dawn, of but one the FIRST of the morning's breaking beams! The first
beam of light that was beheld by the "wakeful" shepherd was all that
was required to anoint his conscious awareness and convert him into a
"prophet shepherd!" Just think! One beam of light is all that is
required to confer upon the one beholding it the gift of prophecy!
And so it is in Christian Science! From the moment a "struggling
heart" often when wandering aimlessly and fearfully around within
the "darkest hour" of their life-experience lifts thought
"wakefully" to behold the very first idea of Mind that bursts
in upon conscious awareness to enlighten thought with the "advanced
idea," a prophet is born and its life begins anew!

When our textbook was first available to humanity in 1875, most of
those to whom its message was irresistibly overwhelming and most
gratefully received, happened to be individuals who were going through
trials and ordeals of every name and nature, but to the man, these
varying forms of "the curse on man" constituted for each individual
the "darkest hour" of their lives! The Christ, had indeed, "come to
the[ir] flesh to destroy incarnate error," and feeling these
life-altering changes occur, one by one did an army begin to grow
that soon converted into a massive movement of humanity that was
being led and fed by God's holy Christ in its second earthly advent
to humanity! Unlike the time of its first advent when it appeared
personally as Jesus; in its second advent it reappeared impersonally
as Science, and it embodied itself within a book, the "leaves"
[pages] of which are "for the healing of the nations."

Mrs. Eddy knew, from her own life-experience, that the "advanced idea"
of the impersonal Christ which she inscribed within our textbook and
introduced upon earth would meet and greet the masses of humanity most
often at the "darkest hour" of night! It is when lost in the dark
that thought "wakefully" reaches up and out as it yearns and strains
to catch the tiniest glimpse of light. Read, and mark well, what our
Leader writes of her own "EMERGENCE INTO LIGHT" from
RETROSPECTION AND INTROSPECTION:

"The world was dark. The oncoming hours were indicated by no floral
dial. The senses could not prophesy sunrise or starlight.
Thus it was when the moment arrived of the heart's bridal to more
spiritual existence. When the door opened, I was waiting and
watching, and, lo, the bridegroom came! The character of the Christ
was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit. My heart knew its
Redeemer. He whom my affections had diligently sought was the One
"altogether lovely," as "the chiefest," the only, "among ten
thousand." Ret. 23:10=20.

How many were there who, at the "darkest hour" of their respective
lives, picked up "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,"
and began a spiritual journey that, by the time it is finished, leads
directly into the "city of our God," a "city not built with hands,"
where there is no need of Sun or satellite to illuminate it, as "there
is no night there," for "Love is the light of it!" The
journey to this holy City is one that traverses a seven hundred page
excursion. And, upon arrival at the glorious destination, the traveler
who started out as one "leaning" on the sustaining infinite, suddenly
awakens to discover and understand the glorious fact that he/she IS
the Sustaining Infinite! This, dear friend, is the destiny of all
humanity! And thus, is God's Christ Science at work revealing to each
"wakeful" thought the divinity of its humanity!

Can you see now why Mrs. Eddy purposed to have a testimony completely
fill page 700, and that its last words conclude the glorious journey
by declaring, "Through the careful and prayerful study of Science and
Health I have been lifted from sickness to health, from sorrow to
peace, from lack to plenty, and, the most beautiful of all, from
darkness to light."

In Unity of Good,

Dave Nolan