SOME COMMENTS ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

Annie M. Knott

A recent public address by a prominent educator in Scotland has aroused much interest because of its reference to Christian Science, and has led a good many to investigate this subject. The theologian began by remarking that it was said "masses of men and women had either forsaken Christianity altogether, or at least had lost all sympathy with religion in any of its ecclesiastical forms." He then quoted the French savant who said, "If I only knew where the road to Damascus is—the road on which Paul met Jesus I would go and walk there." But, the speaker added, modern inquirers cannot find this road; they contended that physical science had slain faith, for them; that it "demanded certainty; or at least a careful balancing of evidence laboriously gathered and assorted; and that there is no room for either within the sphere of religion, exceptunder conditions which are impossible."

When the speaker reached Christian Science in his review of present-day conditions, he said, "They reached the heart of the matter when they recognized that Christian Science was a superb faith built on a basis of metaphysics which seemed to him somewhat crude.... Metaphysics apart, what was the kernel of this faith? Was it not that Jesus Christ is the saviour of the body as well as of the soul, and that he can heal disease as well as sin? The whole Christian Church of the first three centuries believed this most earnestly.... Church historians too long ignored the enormous part that the ministry of healing played in the early centuries of the Christian Church."

Here as everywhere we have the admission that humanity has too long been deprived of what was the basis of primitive Christianity, viz., the recognition of the Divine presence and power as available in every hour of need, this of course including the healing of sickness and the overcoming of sin by spiritual means. It matters little what may be said respecting Christian Science, the fact remains that when Mrs. Eddy gave to the world the truth contained in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," she clearly pointed out "the road on which Paul met Jesus," and since her discovery of Christian Science unnumbered thousands have followed it as did Paul, and like him they can say, "I know whom I have believed"! It should be remembered in this connection that after Paul recognized the Christ he was glad to accept healing at the hands of a lowly disciple, and when he had cast off some of the burdens of scholasticism he, too, went about proving the Divine ever-presence by healing the sick and the sinning.

In our text-book we read, "Must Christian Science come through the Christian churches as some persons insist? This Science has come already, after the manner of God's appointing" (p. 131). This surely means that it has come offering the same evidence as that given by the Master, evidence which all Christians are supposed to accept unquestionably.

The speaker above quoted ventured the statement that a church which maintained the impossibility of individuals attaining to "certainty in religious matters," might be worthy of more esteem than any which taught otherwise. The Christian Scientist's strong point lies in his ability to prove daily and hourly, to the extent of his present understanding, the applicability of spiritual law to every human need. To him, therefore, the presence and power of divine Principle is an absolute certainty; it is indeed the one fact of his experience; God is, and all reality exists because of its relation to this basic truth. An editorial in the same newspaper from which we quote says, "Evidently the first duty of the Church is to make Christians of those it already claims to possess—beginning with the clergy—as a step in the direction of subjugating the world." It is certainly the aim of all true Christian Scientists to become Christians after the pattern shown in the life and work of Christ Jesus.

Annie M. Knott.

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THE IMMUTABILITY OF LAW

November 16, 1907

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