Article August 28, 1902 Issue

Not Loss, but Gain

Albert E. Miller

Nicholson (Pa.) Examiner

Mr. Editor:—It is the common experience of all who have embraced Christian Science, to find on close acquaintance with it that all that was good and pure in their former beliefs is to be found in this new and yet old teaching. This experience is not confined, by any means, to those of one creed. It seems to be common to all. ... It is not surprising, therefore, that Mr. Lewis, whose sermon appears in your columns, should have detected this feature, even though he discloses but a very slight acquaintance with the subject. The insinuation, however, that Mrs. Eddy introduced the teachings of others into the text-book of Christian Science without giving credit therefor, deserves the strongest kind of rebuke. The good and true that is common to all religious teaching had its origin in the utterances of our one Master, and his example and teaching was left a heritage for all who believe him to be the Son of God.

Christian Scientists will also take exception to the manner in which Mr. Lewis refers to the Founder of Christian Science, the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy. If she has been the one through whose teaching thousands upon thousands of her fellow-beings have been brought to a knowledge of God, a knowledge which is not theoretical but is bringing forth the works, or signs, which Jesus said said should them that believe, surely she is deserving of the greatest honor and love. Our brother would do well to remember this when referring to her, or the system she has founded. ... To say that healing is not one of the "genuine Christian doctrines" of this system is to assert that the Founder of Christianity was unchristian when he healed the sick and directed his followers to do likewise.

Mrs. Eddy does not deny the personality of God. In her last message to the Mother Church, she says: "God is Person in the infinite scientific sense of Him, but He can neither be one nor infinite in the corporeal or anthropomorphic sense." Neither does Mrs. Eddy deny the reality of sin, except in the sense that it is unreal because temporal. No one who grasps the teaching of Christian Science in the slightest degree will contend that sin is an unreality to the sinner. In this same message, Mrs. Eddy devotes much space to show that until a sinner proves that he neither fears nor loves sin, it continues to be very much of a reality to him. Thus, she says, "So long as we indulge the presence or believe in the power of sin, it sticks to us and has power over us. Again: To assume there is no reality in sin, and yet commit sin, is sin itself, that clings fast to iniquity."

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