The Mitchell capital. (Mitchell, Dakota [S.D.]) 1879-1918, 1904-05-13
hymn was suug and the people went

IKE Unto Il SUNDAY audience ADDRESS,
ed 10y some famous preacher. Even
Mark Guy Pearse of London, Eng
land, with all the Methodist church-
es to draw from, did not face /. liner
audience while IN Denver. And yet
at this mid-week meeting there is
no preaching, no paid quartet of
trained voices, no sensational adver-
Using, and the editice is not large
enough to hold the people.
AT this service and all the services,
there is no preponde1ance of women
over men. Both sexes seem to be
equally divided. The men are intel
ligent. sagacious, and far-seeing
business men. Many of them have
large interests under their control.
They rep resent the professions of
the city. Some OF them with whom
| have conversed have read widely,
travelled extensively, and were at one
time members of the orthodox
churches. Those who think Chris
tian Scientists do not equal in i'll
tellectual measurement the other
sects have only a superficial knowl-
edge of the subject. | have not seen
a more cultured audience in many Il
day than the one l saw the other
night, and [ have not heard saner
testimonies in any meeting. As [
saw this multitude of people, the
most of them once members of or
thodoX and liberal churches, | could
not refrain from asking, What is
the secret Of Christian Science an d
where is its magnet? 1t has been as
sailed, ridiculed and branded as a
heresy. Scores of writer's have We
hemently denounced it as anti-Christ.
And yet the truths l heard that
night hover in the van of the race,
live in the prcudest chisellings Of
the sculptor, and breathe in the
deepest thoughts of the poet.
Mark Twain, in an elaborate ar
ticle in a great review. hurled his
keen and glittering darts of wit at
it (Christian SCIENCE; and when his
wit, piercing as a two-edged sword,
failed, he pounced upon it the fam
ing petroleum of his ridicule, and
still it is unconsumed. Other levia-
thans of the sea of controversy have
attacked it, but it lives and glows
in the very teeth OF opposition. 1t
ing itc hoiy,r in np,o%1,in ronra c,,h
stantial than poetic dreams Of hui
man perfectibility. Did it have no
rootage in reality it would pass away
like the notified splenoor of the sea
after the sun is out of sight. With
out discussing its philosophy, l simp-
ly note it as a fact to be reckoned
with. 1t is here. Is it here to stay?
Will it gradually absorb the strength
Of the churches and make orthodox
creeds more intolerable to the eX-
banding intellects Of the age? Does
it present a fine thought Of God and
man and proclaim a richer constel-
lation Of truths? Or, as a system Of
thought, will il yield to another
more refined and ethereal? What
ever the future may reveal, not one
CLINT or ray from the central orb of
truth will be quenched. Isms, sects,
cults are but scuds of foam upon the
boundless deep. But the great and
wide sea Of humanity, heaving, tos-
sing, now tremulous with liquid
gold, then dark with fearful frOwns;
now tragic, then comic, will remain,
and no sect will ever be so broad as
to minister to all its creeds. Each
sect is a segment OF the circle and
not the circle itself, They sus-
tain the salne relations tc the all
ness and Wilderness of trush that
leaves do to a forest and single notes
to a symphony. Christian Science
claims to be more of this circle than
any other sect. Posterity will de-
eide, and the decision will he reached
in the electric light of the histori-
ans impartial pen.