Article March 7, 1908 Issue

Our clerical critic starts off by acknowledging the good...

C. N. Churchill—Memphis, Tenn.

Commercial Appeal

Our clerical critic starts off by acknowledging the good works of Christian Science, and then asserts that they come of evil; as if good could possibly come of evil. He says the Christian Scientists did not find what they expected in the churches. True, very true, and with sorrow be it said that this will be so as long as the churches continue to teach materialism instead of the "new tongue" of Spirit; that God is the creator of imperfection,—a material universe and material man, sick, sinning, and dying; that after God finished His work and saw it all good, an inferior so-called power named Satan overcame omnipotence and rendered His spiritual, real creation imperfect, material, and evil, and caused perfect, spiritual man, made in the image and likeness of God, to become imperfect and sinful. Is it possible for that which is perfect to become imperfect? No, a thousand times no! That only is real which is perfect and eternal—i.e., God's creation. If you see imperfection, you may be sure God did not make it; therefore it is not made, as a reality, but only seems to exist, just as a counterfeit dollar seems to be a dollar. Even so matter and evil seem to be realities, but are not, for "the things which are seen are temporal [not God's creation]; but the things which are not seen are eternal,"—real, spiritual, created by Spirit, God....

Christian Science is not mesmerism, hypnotism, esoteric nonsense, or Buddhism, but simply the practical application of the teachings of the Master, who said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," and "these signs shall follow them that believe." The signs do follow and the fruits are good, as testified to by a rapidly growing "cloud of witnesses," to the efficacy of Christian Science in overcoming sin and healing the sick. In the Christian Science text book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," page 104, we read, "Christian Science goes to the bottom of mental action, and reveals the theodicy which indicates the rightness of all divine action, as the emanation of divine Mind, and the consequent wrongness of the opposite so-called action,—evil, occultism, necromancy, mesmerism, animal magnetism, hypnotism." ...

The writer speaks as one who knows, when he testifies that nearly nine years ago, when in a hopeless state, he was healed through spiritual understanding gained in the study of Christian Science, without a single treatment, but by the Word of God, without a chance of hypnotism. The Bible was unlocked by the "Key to the Scriptures," Christ "opened" his understanding, and he was healed. These same "leaves of the tree" that healed him are used by all true practitioners "for the healing of the nations." The Christian Scientist, having awakened to the necessity of "working out his own salvation," finds that the "overcoming of sense and self" leaves him no time to attack the religious beliefs of others. He is busy trying to pray without ceasing and in all things to give thanks.

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