Practical Christianity

David B. Ogden

Portland Oregonian

Mr. Editor.

Christian Science makes no "miraculous claims" in the generally accepted sense of the term, if by miraculous is meant a special divine intervention, but its cures of mental, moral, and physical discord are rather the result of an application in consciousness of the universally operative law of God, divine Mind. Wholesome and reliable witnesses of the fact that Christian Science is eminently practical and effective are well in evidence in almost every community, so that claims to healing are a matter of sight rather than faith in the miraculous.

It is a misconception of its basic teaching to attribute "the rapid rise of Christian Science" to "mysticism" or to "dreams." Its teaching is an earnest protest against mysticism in every form, and its effective appeal to Jew and Gentile alike is due to the fact that an understanding thereof annihilates dogma and mystery by reason of its simplicity and rationality.

As you truly say, "There is no likelihood that Christian Science converts love their children less devotedly than parents in general," and it is for this very reason that they naturally provide for them in time of need that means of healing in which they have greatest confidence. It certainly should not therefore seem inhuman that the parent, who, perchance, has been a bed-ridden sufferer or chronic invalid in the past, and has found health through Christian Science after years of faithful but ineffectual dependence upon material means, should in time of physical distress trust the care of his family to Christian Science rather than to the old methods which have failed him, and that in so doing he feels he has sought the very best means of cure.

David B. Ogden.
In Portland Oregonian.

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