Editorial October 6, 1906 Issue

A GREAT NEED MET

Annie M. Knott

The question is sometimes asked by those who are looking into Christian Science, If this truth is contained in the Bible, why is Science and Health needed? To this it may be answered that Christ Jesus never claimed that he had given to the world the complete teaching needed for its deliverance from sin, disease, and death. On the contrary he declared, "I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," and he taught that the "Spirit of truth," the Comforter, must come and lead his followers "into all truth." In the Gospels and Epistles we have a partial statement only of the Master's teachings, for John says, at the close of his Gospel, that there were "many other things" concerning the Master's work which were not written at that time. More than this, Jesus himself said that "the Comforter" would bring to remembrance the things which he had spoken; "he shall take of mine, and shall show it unto you." This points unmistakably to a further revelation of the "deep things of God," and it also implies a statement of that revelation.

There is not only abundant Scriptural authority for expecting a fuller revelation of God and His law than is given in the Bible, but a great need of it. If mankind had been in possession of the rules by which to work out the varied problems of existence, and above all to overcome sin, disease, and death in the Christ way, then the question might be raised. Why is the teaching of Science and Health necessary? The fact that so many sincerely religious people have been driven almost to despair by the world's sin and suffering, their own and that of others, and that they have felt the demand for the overcoming of all evil, but knew not how to meet it,—this surely answers the question, at least in part. The further fact that thousands of these people are finding in Christian Science the way to overcome, point by point, all that is unlike God, that they now not only see clearly how Jesus and his disciples healed the sick, but are themselves healed, and are conscious of the presence and power of "the Spirit of truth" as a mighty agency in the world,—this adds to the reasons already given for the indispensability of Science and Health to all.

It should not be forgotten that Christian Science came at a time when physical science, so-called, was demolishing all the previously-accepted theories of creation and leaving

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