Article March 23, 1907 Issue

OBEDIENCE

LIEUT.-COL. W. E. FELL

In England one of the most frequent charges leveled against Christian Scientists by other Christian believers is that they are "disobedient." Disobedient to some one or something, but to whom or what is not defined. That this arraignment is not true from a Christianly point of view—and there is no other—should be patent to all who have made a study of Christian Science. It is noticeable that error does not formulate definite charges against Christian Science, but contents itself with what it might term damaging generalities. The inefficacy of this mode of attack is amply evidenced by the daily increasing number of adherents to this freedom-bringing truth.

Christian Science refutes by its "fruits" (results) the imputation of disobedience, but would it not be well for those who make this charge to consider to whom or to what they themselves render obedience? Paul said, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?" To whom or to what are we to yield obedience in order that we may be found as the honest servants of the right master? The Way and Way-shower answers this question for us in these words, "I am not come to destroy [the law], but to fulfil." What law? The Mosaic law, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." This is the antithesis of Divine law as given us by Christ Jesus,—the law of infinite Love, that requires us to love one's neighbors as one's self, to resist not him that is evil, when reviled to revile not again, when smitten on the right cheek to turn the other also, when robbed to resent it not, and to forgive until seventy times seven. Is the Christian Scientist disobedient to this law? And what of this other law to which Christ demands obedience, to "love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind,"—the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me"? Let our critics say in all fairness whether Christian Scientists are not striving in season and out of season to keep intact this first and great commandment. Do they not refuse to acknowledge any god, any power other than God, good? Is it not their incessant, prayerful effort to rise into this consciousness of the allness and oneness of Deity to the exclusion of all that cannot be said to belong to omnipresent good? That which is unlike God is given no power, no place, no intelligence. Does not the Christian Scientist know that God is all the power there is, that He fills immensity to the exclusion of all other presence, that He is the one Mind, the one intelligence, the knowledge of good and good only, or as Scripture says, "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and is not this the God in whom "we live, and move, and have our being"?

If the allegiance of Christian Scientists is given to these two great commandments, how do they manifest disobedience? Are not some offended because others think on different lines from those that they have laid down for themselves? Could our brothers agree amongst themselves as to which of the many scores of Christian denominations the Scientists should give their obedience? No, for their doctrines are in large part opposed. Then why express thoughtless and indiscriminate criticism of their brothers in Christian Science? These things should not be. "Live and let live" is a good proverb, or as Abraham said to Lot, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren." All the Christian Scientist asks of his kind neighbors is to be left alone to work out his own salvation,—to be obedient to the commands of the Master that we preach the gospel, heal the sick, and reform the sinner. The Scientist has found in his religion health, prosperity, happiness, and, greatest good of all, a spiritual uplift that in his wildest dreams he could not previously have conceived to be possible. Can any one of his Christian brothers offer him more than this? Does not much of this harsh criticism, so hurtful to the critic, arise from ignorance of what constitutes the Church of Christ? Is it possible that they think that God is influenced by a man's denominational proclivites? or, on the other hand, is it true that God, speaking through the prophet Micah, having denounced ceremonial worship as useless in His sight, sums up His requirements in these majestic terms, "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"

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