Editorial February 9, 1907 Issue

A TYPICAL EXPERIENCE

ARCHIBALD MCLELLAN

ON reading Mrs. Burnham's article in The World To-Day, one is again reminded that the present believers in Christian Science are largely those who formerly were strongly opposed to its teachings, and in some cases it may be said that this opposition assumed such bitterness as to verge upon persecution. Mrs. Burnham says of her former and latter views on this subject, "I, too, was once among the critics of Christian Science, and that knowledge causes me to ruminate rather than to be indignant. I, too, covered valuable paper with exhortations to misguided relatives and friends who had been inexplicably caught in the meshes of what I hotly detested as a false transcendentalism. Yet I loved the Gospels then. Why could I not see that Christian Science meant only a living faith in them, a realization in the present of something I had until then hoped to attain in another and a better world? It was physical misery which faithful physicians could not relieve that forced me to turn to Christian Science. Despite the sense of condescension and patronage with which I at first permitted its ministrations, I was healed; and the help came so suddenly that it shocked me out of my intention to withdraw at the first possible moment from its influence. Under the permeating goodness, purity, and truth of the new teaching, one after another of the conditions which hampered my life slipped away, and I stood forth a free being."

Mrs. Burnham's experience in seeking health and happiness, and the final realization of both in Christian Science, is typical of the experience of many thousands, and it is because of this seeking and finding that they are now firm in their faith. The truth of Christian Science has been proved to them by demonstration, and they in turn are able to demonstrate it for others. They have received "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified." Upon such people neither misrepresentations nor buffoonery can have the slightest effect. ARCHIBALD MCLELLAN.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

THE FORCE OF DENIAL