Article September 28, 1907 Issue

In an issue of late date you reported a discussion of...

Alfred Farlow

Indianapolis (Ind.) Star

In an issue of late date you reported a discussion of Christian Science by the Rev. Edgar P. Hill, in which the gentleman declares, concerning the discourse of a Christian Science lecturer, "You would find him referring often to the Bible, but giving familiar passages a construction which you have never heard before." I well remember that it was this new interpretation of the Scriptures which first attracted my attention to Christian Science. It is this new interpretation which has rendered God's Word more practical to thousands of individuals, and has enabled them the more effectually to destroy sin and sickness, and we dare say that our readers will agree that an interpretation of the Bible is no less valuable because it disagrees with traditional constructions. If we are to obtain new and better results from our use of the Bible, we must have a new and better understanding of it, and herein lies the benefit of Christian Science. This is an age of scientific institutions, and it seems compatible therewith that a scientific religion should be discovered. ....

Christian Science agrees with the Scriptural teaching. "In him [God] we live, and move, and have our being." It agrees with the Scriptural text: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." But it also recognizes that because of our present material condition we are not able to deport ourselves according to the full stature of manhood in Christ, and as did the Master, who said, "Suffer it to be so now," we must allow many material indulgences that will not be practised by the ideal or perfect man. A Christian Scientist might not be able to "walk through the door," but the Master of Christianity (who was the example for all Christians as well as the author of Divine Science) appeared in the midst of them, the doors being shut, much to the astonishment of his disciples.

The gentleman inquires if the great scientists of the day say that "all is Mind." Who are the great scientists of the day? Doubtless our critic would not allow that a man or woman who believes that all causation is mental is either great or a scientist. It is quite true, nevertheless, that many modern philosophers and scientists approximate very nearly to the teaching of Christian Science on this point. Says Prof. Borden P. Bowne, "The extra-mental world of sense-thought is seen to be a mistreading of experience, and it must inevitably vanish before criticism. A thought-world is the only knowable world, and a thought-world is the only real world." Professor Fiske says, "When he has proceeded as far in subjective analysis as he has in the study of nerves, our materialist will find that it was demonstrated a century ago that the group of phenomena constituting the table has no real existence in a philosophical sense. ... Take away the cognizing mind, and the color, form, position, and hardness of the table—all the attributes, in short, that characterize it as matter—at once disappear. in ...Apart from consciousness there are no such things as color, form, position, or hardness, and there is no such thing as matter. This great truth, established by Berkeley, is the very foundation of modern scientific philosophy, and though it has been misapprehended by many, no one ever refuted it, and it is not likely that any one ever will."

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