Article December 2, 1905 Issue

Christian Science and Dr. Gunsaulus

Chicago (III.) Journal

There may be reasonable objections to Christian Science, but that urged by Dr. Gunsaulus is certainly not one of them. In effect, he condemns Christian Science because it minimizes, if it does not wholly banish, pain and sorrow.

"Pain," says the eminent president of Armour institute, "is the incontestable witness to life and strength. There is no progress without it." These words may have an esoteric meaning which escapes the eye of the casual observer, but their obvious meaning is irreconcilable with common sense. To say that there is no progress without pain is like saying that man cannot walk except with broken legs; that soundness is born of decay, that virtue is the product of sin, happiness the consequent of grief. It is true that this is a view once popular, which was that man is a miserable worm by nature, graciously permitted to live a while in suffering.

Christian Science does not stand alone in taking another and a more hopeful view than this of man's nature and his destiny. Modern science—the science of physical things, as well as the science of psychology—has come to believe that health, not disease, is man's normal state. It believes that happiness, not misery, is man's birthright. It believes that all that injures health, all that lessens happiness, is abnormal. Above all, it believes that man's life on this planet is a growth, a development from lower to higher, from worse to better; that his destiny, so to speak, is his self-development. It teaches that the man is growing, is developing himself; who leaves disease and misery behind him as he reaches out for happiness and health.

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