April 25 / 1888
I have critics among the C.S.B'sEditorial Note: Teachers of Christian Science. of the West because of my lecturing. They say that I stir the people too much and aggravate the error. If I am doing wrongly I desire to know it and will stop at once; for I desire to do right no matter how much censure it calls down upon me.
There is an effort being made to declare Christian Science unchristian by misstating it from pulpit and press This effort I have endeavored to meet by holding up the christianity of Science, the true idea of it. I try to show the difference between C. S. and mindcure and am not very gentle in my denunciations of the "mind quacks" oftentimes naming them out in public. I take the C. S. Journal into the pulpit, also "Science & Health,"Editorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy declaring the former the only periodic al authorized by Mrs. Eddy, and the latter the only work (excepting her smaller books) the only work on Christian Science. Then I show them the danger of reading other literature, and that mixed drinks make people drunken, pressing the statement that Science is pure and if Christian Science is the object of search they must cling to the idea as taught by Mrs. Eddy.
I try to be kind in my address and above all to practice and bring out in my life what I preach. I know my inability, in belief, my fallibilityAs Written:falibility, I have, in belief, one of those members which Paul declared have never been tamedJames 3:8 But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. . Yet I am doing the best I know and have seen good results from my labors. This criticism I feel is nothing less than a refusal to handle the serpent. "Do not stir me up; I am not ready yet to be awakened." "Why hast thou come to torment me before my time".Matt 8:29 And, behold, they cried out, saying, What have we to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of God? art thou come hither to torment us before the time? If you think it best for me to stop lecturing under the circumstances please write me and I will stop at once. But if I have your approval, I shall go on, though burned at the stake. I have perfect confidence in Truth to carry me through. Oh; if I could only get out of the way and leave the field open for Truth. I desire to be right and do right.
[*]Archival Note: The following text is written upside down.Farlow[*]Archival Note: End of upside down text.
P.S. I would not be frank with you, if I did not state that I think there is a belief of jealousy prompting this error, What have I in this world that any could be jealous of?–nothing but toil and privations a steady tug through error.
Yet I know that above the clouds the Sun is shining, the infinite Go d is the only Intelligence and that all error has its support in ignorance, nothi ng.
A. F.