I do not think I shall be wrong in stating that a...

Hampstead (Eng.) Advertiser

I do not think I shall be wrong in stating that a large proportion of those who are now Christian Scientists started by ridiculing and opposing what they had thought to be the teaching of Christian Science, but what, on further inquiry, they found to be their own misconception of its teaching. Now it is evident from even the few extracts that are given from his pamphlet that the clergyman critic has fallen into the old trap, has read the passages which refer to the spiritual fact as if they applied also to the testimony of the physical senses, when Mrs. Eddy has been careful to point out that "the spiritual fact and the material belief of things are contradictions" (Science and Health, p. 289); and on this basis he has erected a charge that Mrs. Eddy's teachings are self-contradictory and absurd.

To make the above quotation clearer, let me say that Christian Science teaches that God, Spirit, Love, being the only Cause and creator, His creation always was, now is, and ever must be, spiritual and perfect—in fact, that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand," here and now; and therefore that matter, with its phenomena,—sin, sickness, and death,—is unreal in the sense that it is not of God, but represents an imperfect, false mortal sense of the spiritual reality, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Christian Science does not deny that evil and discord seem very real to human sense, but it does maintain that, because they are not of God, but rather "the works of the devil" "which deceiveth the whole world," they can be destroyed by a right apprehension of the truth of being. Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free," and it is the application of the theology of Christian Science to the evils and discords of human experience which is freeing an ever-increasing multitude of sufferers from the bondage of sin, sickness, want, and woe of every sort. And they are finding that, in proportion as the teaching of Christian Science becomes clearer and clearer to them, they are gaining at the same time an everincreasing understanding of the Bible, and especially of the life and words and works of the Master. They are finding that the Christian Science commentary, "Science and Health," is indeed, as it claims to be, a "Key to the Scriptures," which is unlocking the treasures of the Bible and making its truth practical for the removal of every ill "that flesh is heir to," in the measure that the spiritual law revealed in it is understood and obeyed. Christian Scientists have known the Scriptures both in the old light and in the new, and all bear witness to the added illumination which has come to them through the understanding of Christian Science. They have found that, as Mrs. Eddy has said, "reason and revelation" are "reconciled, and afterwards the truth of Christian Science" has been demonstrated. [See Science and Health, p. 110.]

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November 2, 1907
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