Article February 19, 1903 Issue

Christian Science Saves the Bible

Alfred Farlow

Boston Times

I have just read from a so-called liberal paper the following statement: "Christian Science is accounted for by Christianity. Christianity is accounted for by superstition." I have also noted an attack upon Christian Science based upon the assumption that prayer is ridiculous. St. Paul declared: "For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God." The modern translation gives it: "The message of the cross is indeed mere folly to people who are on the way to ruin, but to us who are on the way to salvation it is the power of God."

The possibility of healing the sick and reaching the divine aid through prayer may not seem probable to the philosophical mind, but we think this is because the nature of God as well as the scientific, intelligent method of approaching Him is not understood. The materialism of the age, in a great degree, not only obscures the essence and power of God which is invisible to the personal senses, but hinders the interest in cause and effect from a spiritual standpoint. It should not be a matter of astonishment that the laymen should be skeptical in respect to the efficacy of prayer, when some of our clergymen ridicule the practice of depending upon God to the exclusion of medicine as a means of healing the sick.

It is a great strain upon one's fidelity to the Bible to attempt to explain away prayer rather than to admit that the difficulty lies in the kind of prayer employed, and that true prayer is always practical. The substitution of material means for the power of Christ in healing the sick, the advocacy of magnetic influence as a proper substitute for the Holy Ghost in converting sinners, tends to infidelity and a depreciation of the validity of the Holy Scriptures.

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