Article August 17, 1907 Issue

THE CHURCH AND CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AS AN OUTSIDER SEES IT

REV. FRANK N. RIALE, PH.D

I have just received a letter from a ministerial friend in our church, of the very highest standing and largest influences. In it he speaks of Christian Science thus:—

I have seen too many wonderful works ... and people ... come out of Christian Science to ever say one word against it. And I have always taken its part when Dr.—and other ministers have preached against it. That course has only tended to drive farther away from the evangelical churches those who should never have been allowed to go away at all. I have always insisted that everything good in Christian Science is in Presbyterianism.

This spirit is pervading and perfectly honeycombing the ministry of the Church. It burns most brightly in the breasts of those whose lips and lives are acknowledged to be filled most fully with Christ's "sweetness and light." Certainly the "rock foundation" of Christian Science is the rock foundation of Christianity from its very birth—that God is "in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself." Faith in God as our Father, the mystical presence of Christ, the express image of His glory, in the heart of the believer, is the very fountain fact from which all else flows forth. The deductions and inferences that have been called forth from this cardinal truth may not be the same as those in the other creed formulas of the Church; but this is not at all essential. If "new occasions" teach "new duties," it is not at all unlikely that new occasions will teach new truth. The words of Daniel Webster have ever been the deep unwritten conviction of the Church: "There is more valuable truth yet to be gleaned from the sacred writings, that has thus far escaped the attention of commentators, than from all other sources of human knowledge combined."

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