Books by Mary Baker Eddy

TO DONORS OF BOAT, FROM TORONTO, CANADA
page 82

TO DONORS OF BOAT, FROM TORONTO, CANADA

Written on receipt of a beautiful boat presented by Christian
Scientists in Toronto, for the little pond at Pleasant View. The
boat displays, among other beautiful decorations, a number of
masonic symbols.

   Beloved Students and Friends: - Accept my thanks
for the beautiful boat and presentation poem. Each day
since they arrived I have said, Let me write to the donors,
- and what?
   My first impression was to indite a poem; my second,
a psalm; my third, a letter. Why the letter alone? Because
your dear hearts expressed in their lovely gift such
varying types of true affection, shaded as autumn leaves
with bright hues of the spiritual, that my Muse lost her
lightsome lyre, and imagery of thought gave place to
chords of feeling too deep for words.
   A boat song seemed more Olympian than the psalm in
spiritual strains of the Hebrew bard. So I send my
answer in a commonplace letter. Poor return, is it
not?
   The symbols of freemasonry depicted on the boat
wakened memory, touched tender fibres of thought, and
I longed to say to the masonic brothers: If as a woman
I may not unite with you in freemasonry, nor you with
me in Christian Science, yet as friends we can feel the

MISC 143

touch of heart to heart and hand to hand, on the broad
basis and sure foundation of true friendship's "level"
and the "square" of moral sentiments.
   My dear students may have explained to the kind participants
in beautifying this boat our spiritual points,
above the plane of matter. If so, I may hope that a
closer link hath bound us. Across lakes, into a kingdom,
I reach out my hand to clasp yours, with this silent benediction:
May the kingdom of heaven come in each of
your hearts!
                                        With love,
                                        Mary Baker Eddy

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