Article June 12, 1909 Issue

That Christian Science is the same doctrine which was...

George W. Farlow

Boston Times

That Christian Science is the same doctrine which was taught by Jesus, is shown by the results which follow its practice, and is attested by the life of its Discoverer. Jesus was the highest human example of the real and spiritual man in the image and likeness of God, Spirit. While Jesus was in a sense the "Son of man," he showed forth in his life the sonship of God. He demonstrated that sonship which came from God, hence the positiveness of his utterances concerning God and the perfectness of his teachings. What Jesus knew, he gave to mankind that they might employ it in their lives and daily practices, thereby making life not a material burden but a spiritual pleasure. He had no time for worldly pleasures; no more have sinful mortals, but they cannot be expected at a single bound to reach the exalted station of Jesus. He taught the perfect plan of salvation and loved only the good, while that which was born of discord was absolutely distasteful to him. Nevertheless, he was filled with compassion for human woe and suffering, and healed the afflicted.

Christian Science healing is accomplished not by "suggestion" nor by "mind over matter," but by the silent recognition that divine Mind is the only power and presence, a recognition which overcomes all the imperfections of mortal existence. In this manner each Christian Scientist becomes his own practitioner, and the divine Mind, omnipotent Love, is the healer. Christian Science does not ignore evil. It recognizes the pretensions of evil in the false human consciousness, and destroys them by the understanding that there is no evil in ever-present spiritual consciousness, and thus evil is overcome by eternal good. It affirms that man in the image and likeness of God cannot know evil, since God is of "purer eyes than to behold evil."

The teaching of Christian Science, like that of Jesus, is not pantheistic. It teaches that God is good, infinite good; that man is His image and likeness, God's reflection; that the creations of God are spiritual, that every creature has its individuality, not as a part of God, but as a manifestation of God. Christian Science does not begin with mortal man, an erroneous representative of God, and thus undertake to determine what God is. It begins with God, the perfect being, to determine what man is, on the basis that man is God's "own image."

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