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
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