Article August 4, 1906 Issue

The healing in Christian Science is not the greatest tenet...

Robert Marshall

Rutherford (N. J.) Republican

The healing in Christian Science is not the greatest tenet of the belief. It is but a side issue. The strongest and highest attainment is to bring the kingdom of heaven from beyond that vague ether which we call the sky. Other teachers promise us that if we are good, we shall have heaven after we die. The Christian Scientists try to bring that heaven to us now. The ideal man is one who is ever thoughtful of others; who brings happiness and does good; who sheds sunshine and love unconsciously. . . . If a religion is so broad, so liberal, so effective that it can make a man hold up his head and say "I am a man;" if it can make a man go deep into his pocket for money (and that's a mighty searching test); if it will make him give with a joyous heart; if it will make him love his family and his neighbors—to do for them all he can; if it will turn a squalid home into a sweet and beautiful abode where love and happiness are hand in hand; then it seems to me that it's a pretty good religion, even though in addition it does away with the doctor's bills. What matters it that the religion emanates from a little New Hampshire town, and is voiced by a woman? Perhaps the main objection is due to the fact that it does not look like religion. When you come right down to it, what does the pomp of the church amount to? The burning of incense does not get beyond the church door, and perhaps God wouldn't care for it even if it did. And maybe He really doesn't so much want bright, showy vestments on His altars, as He does good Christian hearts. I don't know; I am only surmising. But after all, what does it matter where a man kneels in prayer, so long as his heart goes out to God? Does it make any difference at the great white throne whether that prayer comes from a dim church with the gentle tremolo of a big organ to accompany it on its upward flight, or whether it comes from a forest glade, nought but the blue sky above and the whispering of the birds to carry it upward; whether it comes from the solitude of one's closet or from a bright, sunlit Scientist church? The prayers all go to the same God, and He loves us all, whether we be Episcopalian or Baptist, Catholic or Presbyterian, Methodist or Christian Scientist. It is results that count, and the Christian who can make a heaven on this old prosaic earth of ours is, I have faith to believe, going to lead in the long, white-robed procession that we are told will come to the foot of the eternal throne on that last day.

So perhaps it would be just as well if the minister who assails the Christian Scientists would go deeper into the teachings of that big book that he opens every Sunday morning and night, and remember that they are all God's children, after all.

Robert Marshall.
Rutherford (N. J.) Republican.

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