Article May 2, 1908 Issue

While Christian Science teaches that sin, sickness, and...

John W. Opdenweyer—New Orleans, La.

Times-Democrat

While Christian Science teaches that sin, sickness, and death are not the creations of God, and therefore have no foundation in fact, nevertheless their claim to existence in erring mortal experience must be recognized and overcome. It is, therefore, incorrect to say that Christian Science undertakes to dispose of sin and its results by simply ignoring them. Evil seems to exist and to be very real to mortals, until they grapple with and overcome it; but the possibility of destroying it lies in the fact that it is only a temporal falsity, while good is the eternal reality.

It is not the phenomena of nature which are denied by Christian Science, but the humanized material sense of them. Christian Science interprets the nature and constituency of creation from a spiritual view-point, and teaches one to know it as God made it and as it appears to Him. Our critics should patiently wait until they are able to perceive that which this Science gives in place of that which it repudiates, then they would be pleased and satisfied, rather than provoked by its teachings.

It has always been difficult to put into expression metaphysical propositions; hence the use of the many parables in the Bible. When by the test of trial balance the accountant who is familiar with the science of mathematics as applied in the double-entry system of accounting, discovers certain errors (which are occasioned by ignorance or a thousand and one other influences, direct or indirect), he does not declare them to be legitimate, nor does he hold the author of the system responsible, as he knows them to be due to his own misapplication. Thus it is with the evils which confront us in our daily experienes. They are not corrected by mere faith or human will, or by the careless declaration, "There is no error or sin;" but, thanks to the everlasting, intelligent application of the truth,—the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, without variableness or shadow of turning in its divine Principle,—one can find out and destroy the smear of hypocrisy and deceit in the false entry of human injustice and unrighteousness.

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