1.

“When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut the door pray to the father which is in secret, and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” 

The closet signifies the sanctuary of Spirit, its door opening on Soul, and not sense, opening to Truth, God, and closing on error. The father in secret is the Principle of man, unseen to personal sense, the infinite Intelligence that knows all things, and rewards according to motives, regarding mind only and not speech.  (Eddy, Mary Baker, Science and Health, 1^st ed., p.293)

       Oh may this Easter Sunday carry you my prayer …”Little children love one another” … you must love all.  No matter if they persecute you even, you must love all.  But you must love especially the brethren.  You must meet with them, cheer them, in their labors, point the way of love to them and show them it by loving first, and waiting patiently for them to be in this great step by your side, loving each other and walking together.  This is what the world must see before we can convince the world of the truths of Christian Science. (Fettweis and Warneck, Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Healer, p.145)

     This glad Easter morning witnesseth a risen Saviour, a higher human sense of Life and Love, which wipes away all tears. With grave-clothes laid aside, Christ, Truth, has come forth from the tomb of the past, clad in immortality. The sepulchres give up their dead. Spirit is saying unto matter: I am not there, am not within you. Behold the place where they laid me; but human thought has risen.

     Mortality’s thick gloom is pierced. The stone is rolled away. Death has lost its sting, and the grave its victory. Immortal courage fills the human breast and lights the living way of Life. (Eddy, Mary Baker, First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p.191:15-25)

EASTER MESSAGE, 1902

Beloved Brethren: – May this glad Easter morn find the members of this dear church having a pure peace, a fresh joy, a clear vision of heaven here, ­heaven within us, – and an awakened sense of the risen Christ. May long lines of light span the horizon of their hope and brighten their faith with a dawn that knows no twilight and no night. May those who discourse music to­day, sing as the angels heaven’s symphonies that come to earth.

     May the dear Sunday School children always be gathering Easter lilies of love with happy hearts and ripening goodness. To-day may they find some sweet scents and beautiful blossoms in their Leader’s love, which she sends to them this glad morn in the flowers and the cross from Pleasant View, smiling upon them. (Eddy, Mary Baker, First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, p.155:16-31)

Easter Services – 5 

     We must lay aside material consciousness, and then we can perceive Truth, and say with Mary, “Rabboni” ­– Master!

     In 1866, when God revealed to me this risen Christ, this Life that knows no death, that saith, “Because he lives, I live.” I awoke from the dream of Spirit in the flesh so far as to take the side of Spirit, and strive to cease my warfare.

     When, through this consciousness, I was delivered from the dark shadow and portal of death, my friends were frightened at beholding me restored to health.

     A dear old lady asked me, “How is it that you are restored to us? Has Christ come again on earth?”

     “Christ never left,” I replied; “Christ is Truth, and Truth is always here, – the impersonal Saviour. “ Then another person, more material, met me, and I said, in the words of my Master, “Touch me not.” I shuddered at her material approach; then my heart went out to God, and I found the open door from this sepulchre of matter.

     I love the Easter service: it speaks to me of Life, and not of death.

     Let us do our work; then we shall have part in his resurrection. (Eddy, Mary Baker, Miscellaneous Writings, p.179:28-19)

Easter Services – 4 

     In the new religion the teaching is, “He is not here; Truth is not in matter; he is risen; Truth has become more to us, – more true, more spiritual.”

     Can we say this to-day? Have we left the consciousness of sickness and sin for that of health and holiness?

     What is it that seems a stone between us and the resurrection morning?

     It is the belief of mind in matter. We can only come into the spiritual resurrection by quitting the old consciousness of Soul in sense.

     These flowers are floral apostles. God does all this through His followers; and He made every flower in Mind before it sprang from the earth: yet we look into matter and the earth to give us these smiles of God! (Eddy, Mary Baker, Miscellaneous Writings, p.179: 13-27)

Easter Services – 3

     At the conclusion of the sermon, the pastor again came forward, and added the following: –

     My friends, I wished to be excused from speaking to-day, but will yield to circumstances. In the flesh, we are as a partition wall between the old and the new; between the old religion in which we have been educated, and the new, living, impersonal Christ-thought that has been given to the world to-day.

     The old churches are saying, “He is not here;” and, “Who shall roll away the stone?”

     The stone has been rolled away by human suffering. The first rightful desire in the hour of loss, when believing we have lost sight of Truth, is to know where He is laid. This appeal resolves itself into these questions: – Is our consciousness in matter or in God? Have we any other consciousness than that of good? If we have, He is saying to us to-day, “Adam, where art thou?” We are wrong if our consciousness is in sin, sickness, and death. This is the old consciousness. (Eddy, Mary Baker, Miscellaneous Writings, p.178:25-

Easter Services – 2 

     Mr. Easton then delivered an interesting discourse from the text, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God” (Col. iii. 1), which he prefaced by saying: — 

     “I think it was about a year ago that I strayed into this hall, a stranger, and wondered what sort of people you were, and of what you were worshippers. If any one had said to me that to-day I should stand before you to preach a sermon on Christian Science, I should have replied, ‘Much learning’ — or something else —‘hath made thee mad.’ If I had not found Christian Science a new gospel, I should not be standing before you: if I had not found it truth, I could not have stood up again to preach, here or elsewhere.”  (Eddy, Mary Baker, Miscellaneous Writings, p.178:10-24)