But Their Eyes Were Holden

We take the following clipping from the Boston Sunday American of June 28:—

Julia Ward Howe has had a remarkable vision of a new era for mankind. In a manner believed by Mrs. Howe and her intimate friends to be supernatural, the veil of the unseen has been lifted before her eyes. The first intimation of her vision outside of her own immediate family was given in a talk with a leading delegate to the convention of women’s clubs at a reception given in her honor by Mrs. Sims-Nowell in Newport. The story amazed the woman delegate and she repeated it. The place and time of the revelation Mrs. Howe refuses to give even to her most intimate friends, although she is willing to make public what was revealed to her.

Her own statement, made through the Boston Sunday American to-day, reveals what she believes to be a lifting of the veil which obscures the long promised millennium. In her vision she clearly saw an age of human battle with forces of evil and suffering, followed by triumph and an era of universal peace and purity, when men and women united by bonds of perfect sympathy all worked together for the uplifting of the race, a new sympathy in which all joined forces to relieve human misery. Mrs. Howe’s own statement as to what was revealed to her in her vision, impressively told by the venerable woman to a Boston American reporter at Oak Glen, Portsmouth, R. I., yesterday, is here given:—

“One night recently I experienced a sudden awakening. I had a vision of a new era which is to dawn for mankind and in which men and women are battling, equally, unitedly, for the uplifting and emancipating of the race from evil. I saw men and women of every clime, working like bees to unwrap the evils of society, and to discover the whole web of vice and misery, and to apply the remedies and also to find the influences that should best counteract evil and its attending suffering.

“There seemed to be a new, a wondrous, ever-permeating light, the glory of which I cannot attempt to put in human words—the light of the new-born hope and sympathy blazing. The source of this light was born of human endeavor, immortal purpose of countless thousands of men and women who were equally doing their part in the world-wide battle with evil, and whose energy was bended to tear the mask from error, crime, superstition, greed, and to discover and apply the remedy.

“I saw the men and the women, standing side by side, shoulder to shoulder, a common, lofty, and indomitable purpose lighting every face with a glory not of this earth. All, all were advancing with one end in view, one foe to trample, one everlasting good to gain. I saw them advancing like a mighty army, laden with the fruits of their research, their study, their endeavor, in this battle with the powers of darkness and ready to tear vice from the earth, to strip away all of selfishness, of greed, of rapine. Then I seemed to see them stoop down to their fellows and to lift them higher, higher, and yet higher. Men and women, a vast host whom none could number, working unitedly, equally, with superhuman energy, all for the extirpation of the blackness of vice and for the weal of the race.

“And then I saw the victory! “All, all of evil was gone from the earth. Misery was blotted out. Mankind was emancipated and ready to march forward in a new era of human understanding, all-encompassing sympathy, and ever-present help. The era of perfect love, of peace passing understanding.”

It is somewhat peculiar that in the chronicling of this vision it has not occurred to any one—not even to Mrs. Howe herself—that the very condition which she has seen as a possibility of the future is even now an accomplished fact through Christian Science; that over forty-two years ago another woman saw not only the great needs of humanity which Mrs. Howe has now seen, but also the means whereby men and women might work successfully for “the uplifting and emancipating of the race from evil.” This woman who not only saw but acted was Mrs. Eddy, and under her leadership effective work for the redemption of the race has gone forward for the past four decades. She gave to the world Science and Health, the “Key” that has loosed the fetters of sin and suffering from “countless thousands” of earth’s sorrowing ones, and the “mighty army” which Mrs. Howe saw in her vision, “laden with the fruits of their research, their study, their endeavor in this battle with the powers of darkness and ready to tear vice from the earth, to strip away all of selfishness, of greed, of rapine,” is not a visionary host—it exists to-day, a “mighty army” made up of hundreds of thousands of men and women in every civilized nation of the globe, those who “have come up out of great tribulation,” and who under the guidance of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science are laboring unselfishly and successfully for their fellows.

As long ago as 1875 Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health (p. 226), “The voice of God in behalf of the African slave was still echoing in our land, when the voice of the herald of this new crusade sounded the key-note of universal freedom, asking a fuller acknowledgment of the rights of man as a Son of God, demanding that the fetters of sin, sickness, and death be stricken from the human mind and that its freedom be won, not through human warfare, not with bayonet and blood, but through Christ’s divine Science.” Mrs. Eddy’s own work has been along this line, and the unnumbered thousands who have been healed and saved through her ministry constitute “a vast host” who are “equally doing their part in the world-wide battle with evil, and whose energy” is “bended to tear the mask from error, crime, superstition, greed, . . . and apply the remedy.”

It is all but thirty years since this great work for the “uplifting and emancipating of the race from evil” was publicly inaugurated in this city of Boston by the organization of the “Church of Christ, Scientist,” a tiny seed, sown with tears and prayers, that has become a mighty tree whose branches have spread to the uttermost parts of the earth, —this mighty work has been done in our midst, and yet there are those of whom one must write as did the chronicler of the disciples of old, “but their eyes were holden.”