Article October 28, 1905 Issue

Advancing Conditions

C. W. CHADWICK.

The immature thought of many students is doubtless responsible in no small degree for prevalent misconceptions which tend to prejudice people against Christian Science and to blind their eyes to a just recognition of the great good it is accomplishing throughout the world. In his over-anxiety to have his friends share the peace and happiness that have entered into his own life, and actuated, perhaps, by the novelty of the "new tongue," he too often ventures upon the quicksands of inexperience by attempting to explain certain abstract statements, the truth of which he has not proven and consequently does not fully understand.

The natural inference, especially on the part of those not inclined to hear of anything beyond the range of the physical senses, after listening to such premature discussions, is that Christian Science is not at all practical, not at all adapted to meet the every-day needs of humanity, and can we wonder that such is the case? Although their statements may be correct in premise, it is oftentimes overlooked by outsiders and by students themselves, that they are dealing with absolute truths, which cannot be rightly comprehended from a purely intellectual standpoint, but must be understood by degrees, through earnest and continued effort to spiritualize thought and action. The constant application and practice of its rules can alone elucidate Christian Science, and nothing else will ever make us its practical and effective representatives.

Another most important point, often overlooked, is that there must be a willing mind to receive even the first faint lispings of scientific thought,—the soil must be prepared to receive the seed, else one's most sincere and honest efforts to expound metaphysical propositions are liable to be misjudged or even maligned. The problems to be worked out in every-day life are clearly defined in the Christian Science text-book; and as in mathematics we cannot expect to understand cube-root before we do multiplication and division, so in Christian Science we need to begin with the simplest problems, and to know that if we understand the Principle and apply its rule we shall ultimately be able to solve the greater ones.

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An Allegory
October 28, 1905
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