Article March 9, 1907 Issue

Jesus' dictum, "Ye shall know them by their fruits," is...

Willard S. Mattox

St. Albans (Vt.) Messenger

Jesus' dictum, "Ye shall know them by their fruits," is as inexorable as mathematics, as immutable as the laws of the Medes and Persians. It is merciless to the unfruitful systems; it does not condone failure, compromise with hypocrisy, or sympathize with incompetency. It demands results. Preaching, according to Jesus' standard, must be followed by results. The mere process of intellection is not an evidence of Christianity. The older religions cannot hope and should not try to escape measuring up to this standard. Acceptance of a religious belief by a great number of persons is not, in itself, evidence of the truthfulness of that belief. Nor does the age of a religious belief necessarily imply its verity. There may be popular forms of religion which have existed for many years, which nevertheless may not have any of the fruits spoken of by Jesus, by means of which they may be identified. He did not say, You shall know the true Christian church by its intellectual preachers, its colleges and seminaries, and the fact that many have believed in it for a long time. He gave one simple test, "Ye shall know them by their fruits;" and Christian Scientists are willing to be tested by Jesus' standard.

The fact that our critic does not seem willing to agree to such a test, cannot rebut the evidence in favor of Christian Science. He tries to explain away the fruits of Christian Science practice. He says other systems show similar results. In this he is mistaken. To him they appear similar, but the Christian Scientist knows why they are not alike. Faith-cure, mesmerism, and other human theories, depend upon the activity of the human mind. Christian Science eschews the aid of the mind of mortals and depends entirely upon the divine Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." Again, the results of Christian Science practice are said not to be invariable. No, but they are sufficiently persistent to indicate plainly the operation of a fixed Principle. Our critic has probably gone to the daily press for his statistics regarding the percentage of successes and failures in Christian Science. In the past it has happened that imperfect, unreliable, and even false reports have been intruded upon the editors of the press, but since the editors have become more awake to this intrusion, it is reasonable to expect more accurate reports from now on.

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