The author of the sermon partially reproduced in a recent...

Norristown (Pa.) Herald

The author of the sermon partially reproduced in a recent issue so frankly acknowledged the good that is being accomplished by Christian Science in leavening popular thought on subjects of vital importance to mankind, that it is difficult to believe he intended to say that the church and Christian Science have "divided the ministry of faith from the ministry of healing," or that "Christian Science has materialized the ministry of healing;" for if there is anything that Christian Science has not done it is those two things.

"Jesus healed sickness and sin by one and the same metaphysical process," writes Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health (p. 210); and Christian Science is a living protest against trying to heal either sickness or sin in any other way. On page 135 of the same volume, which is the text-book of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy declares that "the same power which heals sin heals also sickness;" and Christian Science holds that the only real power is God, Spirit. It will be seen, therefore, that instead of attempting to separate faith and healing or to materialize the latter, Christian Science does exactly the opposite.

If, as the good pastor says, the existence of the Christian Science movement is a rebuke to the church, the occasion for rebuke lies not in the failure of the church to work with the drug physician (it is manifestly trying to do that), but in its failure to discern in the teachings of the Master and the lives of himself and his disciples and early followers that the true priest and the true physician are one and the same, both in individuality and in office. The Founder of Christianity was himself the "great Physician." He healed the sick by purely spiritual means and declared that all who believed on him should do likewise. For three hundred years thereafter the preaching of the gospel and the healing of the sick were identical, and Christian Science today is bringing about a revival of this complete ministry.

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January 27, 1912
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