Editorial January 25, 1908 Issue

"I WILL COME TO YOU"

John B. Willis

It is probable that no feature of the Christian Science service seems so strange and conspicuous to the uninitiated as the absence of a personal preacher. In all the centuries of Christian history this personal factor has been very prominent in the church, and its influence has ranged all the way from the instruction and guidance of a peasant flocki to the sovereign control of an ecclesiastical organization which has dominated states and nations. Hence, a Christian service without an ecclesiastic may seem to many to be an innovation which is not only unwarranted, but which is subversive of the Scripture teaching, "How shall they hear without a preacher?" When, however, it is seen that the life, functions, and efficiency of the church are not only not impaired, but that they are advanced and improved thereby, criticism gives place to an awakened interest, and it is speedily learned that in truth the preacher has not been given up; there has simply been a substitution of the impersonal for the personal. The present and direct availability of "the Spirit of truth" is reasserted, in exaltation of the Christ-idea and in fulfilment of the assurance of the Master when he said, "When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth." "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."

In Christian Science individual illumination and guidance by divine Truth is no longer thought of as merely a poetic suggestion of the religious imagination; it is understood to be a practical possibility, which is presented to every believer, and when this is apprehended the change instituted by the Leader of the Christian Science movement is seen to have a very vital and profound significance. It harks back to the inheritance of the saints, the promise that every one shall be "taught of God." It takes the "inspired Word of the Bible" as humanity's "sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Science and Health, p. 497). It regards the Logos as the one efficient teacher. And thus it centers thought upon the accessibility and intelligibility of divine Truth, instituting thereby a relatively new habit of worship; namely, the listening ear. A new-old thought of the meaning of the word "preacher" has been established.

The voicing of truth has always been regarded as the central and effective factor of the Christian ministry, but in all the years the item of personality, and the individual and undemonstrated opinions attaching thereto, have acquired a place and recognition which has tended to obscure and lessen rather than to increase and intensify truth's appeal. Thought has even been tempted to yield attention to the arts of speech,—to phrase and form, pose and presentation, illustration and effect,—and to the distinct disadvantage, as ecclesiastics themselves are everywhere conceding, of the healing and saving Word. Respecting this tendency the Dean of Ripon has recently said,—

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