Article December 1, 1906 Issue

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

The Independent

While not counted among the disciples of Christian Science, we would not be slow to recognize and admire the earnestness, devotion, and Christian spirit of its people. Men may differ as to its underlying philosophy, but none can question the deep faith of its adherents in God, their true discipleship of Jesus Christ, and the religious vitality of their Church.

They are unfaltering believers in the Christian religion. To their science they give the designation Christian, because they are first Christians. Like all of us, they give their own interpretation to the Bible, more literal than we would allow, and they much value that interpretation and that system of philosophy taught them by Mrs. Eddy, an article by whom we publish this week. Accordingly they have the same right as other Christians to unite in an organization and have their own ministers and churches, while there is no reason why those who hold their faith should not, when they please, remain members of other denominations, just as a Baptist or a Methodist may, when more convenient, retain membership in a Presbyterian or Episcopal church.

It is to their credit that their faith shows itself in their works. We do not refer so much to the generosity of their gifts to build noble places of worship, although such a temple as that in Boston might well excite admiration. We have in mind rather that fervor of their faith which reaches the roots of life and death, and makes them fully trust God and their doctrine of the nature of disease and health when they are sick. To those of other training their confidence has seemed fantastic and presumptuous; but in multitudes of cases it has seemed justified, so that the only recourse of their critics has been to refer such cures to the effects of imagination, for the cures cannot be denied.

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