Testimony of Healing November 1, 1900 Issue

Rescued from Agnosticism

J. F. M.

Whence? Why? Whither? are questions that have been confronting man ever since he began to think. I wrestled with these problems for about thirty years and finally gave them up as insoluble, which they are from any but the Christian Science standpoint. I say it is impossible to reconcile the existence of evil—sin, disease, and death—with the existence of a benevolent, all-wise, and all-powerful deity. The Bible declares that God is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity; then why does He suffer it to be? We cannot say that it is because He lacks the will, the wisdom, or the power to prevent it, without denying either His benevolence, His wisdom, or His omnipotence.

It is stated that suffering is necessary as a discipline to enable man to attain to a higher and better manhood. Why was man so constituted as to make it necessary for him to suffer in order to reach this higher condition? Brought into the world without his consent, it always seemed to me that man had a right to look to his creator for happiness, and if he failed to get it his creator was to blame. Thus the universe appeared a mighty maze, and all without a plan. It sometimes seemed that this world was at the mercy of the caprice of an evil spirit. I saw iniquity prosperous and happy and those who manifested love to man, if not to God, afflicted. I would have sought refuge in atheism, but there were too many phenomena pointing to a cause of some kind to make it possible for me to rest in that negation.

About three years ago I was brought in contact with Christian Science. I should not have given it a second thought ordinarily, but my business associated me with Christian Scientists and I could not help admiring the beauty and harmony of their lives. In the course of business I had to read Science and Health, and so began to see the reasonableness of many things in Christian Science that had seemed to me the height of absurdity. Furthermore, I had never found agnosticism, in which I had finally taken refuge, a comforting or satisfactory theory of life, and had always wished for something better. Christian Science offered me this, and the better acquainted I become with it, the more I feel its influence on my life and character, the stronger becomes my conviction that it is indeed the Way, the Truth, the Life offered to us by the Master.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

An All-important Question Answered