Article July 19, 1913 Issue

A Melbourne daily recently gave, in an extract from the...

David Anderson—Box Hill, Australia.

The Reporter

A Melbourne daily recently gave, in an extract from the London Daily News, certain views of ritualism by a well-known London writer covering lines outside the usual connotation of the term, and in the course of which he says: "It is notorious, of course, that the Christian Scientists would cure all sickness by proclaiming that there is none to cure," a position which, he justly claims, would be as false as that the social problem can be solved by saying that it is solving itself. Why this should have been asserted as a statement "of course," is not clear; but a distinctly notorious fact in connection with Christian Science is that a majority of its aggressive critics manifest complete lack of knowledge of its teachings, as well as a willingness to accept and argue from the opinions of others who know as little, and who have made as little effort to know, about the subject as themselves. Proceeding in the statement of his views, the London essayist says, "You do not sympathize with the sick man at all if you do not sympathize with the reality of his sickness;" and although he does not specially associate sympathy with Christian Science, its attitude is always one of sympathy with the one in bondage to the belief of sin, though never with the sin; also with the sick, though never with sickness. In both cases its sympathy is intensely practical, for its teachings show demonstrably how freedom from these abnormal conditions is to be obtained.

Christian Science denies to evil that reality which it attributes only to the God-created and eternal, and it refuses to regard evil as an entity or as possessing power to bring sin or sickness to the children of God, made in God's image and likeness. The overcoming of sin and sickness constitutes the raison d'être of Christian Science, and it nowhere teaches that they are to be ignored or overlooked. Its text-book,"Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," shows how these temporary and evil conditions are to be destroyed by the power of God, the supremacy of Spirit over the flesh, and in it we read that Christians "must grapple with sin in themselves and in others, and continue this warfare until they have finished their course" (p. 29). If the opponents of Christian Science would cease denouncing and posing as authorities on that which their utterances prove they have made no sincere attempt to understand, and would devote a corresponding effort to furnish a more practical and satisfying religion to their weary, sick, and heart-sore fellow men, commensurate benefit would accrue to themselves and to the world at large. But until they can show that the world is worse because of Christian Science, or that its teaching has been other than beneficial in result, they will strive in vain to check its progress; and if this Kensingtonian mentor, instead of adhering to his expressed resolution of keeping one eye open, will open both eyes wide and use them, he will readily find abundant evidence to show why Christian Science should not be included in the "new creeds and cures" which he declares are blind to chaos and error.

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