Further in her Communion Address for January, 1896, she writes: "For "Who is so great a God as our God!' unchangeable, all-wise, all-just, all-merciful; the ever-loving, ever-living Life, Truth, Love: comforting such as mourn, opening the prison doors to the captive, marking the unwinged bird, pitying with more than a father's pity; healing the sick, cleansing the leper, raising the dead, saving sinners. As we think thereon, man's true sense is filled with peace, and power; and we say, It is well that Christian Science has taken expressive silence wherein to muse His praise, to kiss the feet of Jesus, adore the white Christ, and stretch out our arms to God. The last act of the tragedy on Calvary rent the veil of matter, and unveiled Love's great legacy to mortals: Love forgiving its enemies. This grand act crowned and still crowns Christianity: it manumits mortals; it translates love; it gives to suffering, inspiration; to patience, experience; to experience, hope; to hope, faith; to faith, understanding; and to understanding, Love triumphant!" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 124.) "Down to the Mothers. Mothers of us in our cradles; of us once more in our glory New born, body and soul, in the great pure world which shall be "The woman's part should be to cultivate the affections and the imagination; the man's the intellect of their common Soul. She must teach him how to apply his knowledge to men's hearts. He must teach her how to arrange that knowledge into practical and theoretical forms. In this the woman has the nobler task. But there is one more noble still-to find out from the notices of the universe, and the revelation of God, and the uninspired truth which He has made His creatures to declare even in heathen lands, to find out from all these the pure mind of God and the eternal laws whereby He made us and governs us. This is true Science; and this as we discover it, will replace phantoms by reality, and that darkling taper of 'common sense' by the glorious light of certainty." CHARLES KINGSLEY. "Thank him who isled us here, and roughly set Till public wrong be crumbled into dust, TENNYSON. T CHAPTER V GLASTONBURY AND THE ARTHURIAN LEGENDS HE civilization of Egypt, Greece, and Rome has appeared greatly superior to that of Israel and Judah, chiefly because of its exploits in architecture, art and education, and the attention given to all the complex organization of political and social life. From the point of view of world affairs it would seem ludicrous to compare the Palestinian with the Athenian, the Roman, or the Alexandrian, so far in advance appear the lastnamed over any descendant of those ancient Shepherd Kings whose earthly cares were centred in flocks and herds, and whose intellectual exercise was confined to the contemplation of the stars. The early Christian Saints and Bishops stand out as beacon lights among the multitudes that thronged the chief centres of this worldly, luxurious, intellectual civilization of the Nile, the Tiber, or the Ægean Sea; but after some three hundred years of history, the interested student of Church establishment finds himself suddenly brought to a halt. A curious conviction slowly permeates his researches that Christianity is making no further progress, is even declining from its first pure radiance; and the reason is that while the seed of truth has been sown in the soil of rich worldly culture, it is not a spiritual soil. The Latin and African races, however developed they may be in every intellectual sense, do not make corresponding spiritual advance. If Principle is expressed through limited personal channels, and universal truth is narrowed into ecclesiasticism, it is because the actual stock and make up, the human 'genre' in which it is at work is of such an earthly, material composition that it can only continue to worship the old gods of anthropomorphism under new Christian names. If the life and teaching of Jesus are to bear their true fruit in the world it would seem that some better, fitter soil must be found in which to plant the inspired word. Where could such a territory be discovered? Jesus had said to his disciples: "Go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel;" but not one of them had seemed to know where those lost sheep were. Saint Paul alone, who was not among the twelve apostles, received a vision that God would send him "far hence unto the Gentiles," and before Paul was able even to turn his gaze westward the wondrous hand of Providence had already provided a band of evangelists of rare and exceptional character, whose planting of the Gospel was to prove to be in the very heart of God's chosen people. When we turn westward, it is manifest that Christianity becomes infused with a new element, with a force, which has an immeasurable influence, for woman takes her place in a leading and governing capacity that she has never enjoyed or been called upon to assume with the Latin peoples. When the solemn promise of the third chapter of Genesis that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head is recalled, it must readily be seen that Christianity could make no real progress until woman began to take her rightful place in its spiritual activities. The polygamy of Palestine may have placed her in a worse worldly position than that of the honoured matron of the Roman household, but even so her spiritual gifts were not without recognition in past history. God had included Sarah in the great covenant which He made with Abraham. Miriam the prophetess had led the women of Israel in a |