HONOR TO WHOM HONOR IS DUE

Archibald McLellan

We quote the following from an interesting article by Rex G. White in The Kansas City Spirit:—

Kansas City has found that Christian Scientists are an exceptionally interesting class of people and that they are generally admired and esteemed. That they have done incalculable good and are among our most worthy citizens who are a power for the elevation of the community, passes unchallenged. Whether they are right or wrong in theory and tenet, they have compelled acknowledgment of their past good works, which, if taken as an earnest of the future, must likewise force the confession that they are a factor for the higher development of the people, and, remembering early struggles, give thanks to the little white-haired woman back in New England, whose devotion to her Cause has enabled many of us still to greet some friend or relative who otherwise would have long since been in his or her grave. No woman since the world began has had a greater, more loving or loyal following than Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, and none have deserved more.

This recognition of the value of Mrs. Eddy's work,—that it "has enabled many of us still to greet some friend or relative who otherwise would have long since been in his or her grave,"—gives honor where honor is due, but the writer might have gone farther and still kept within bounds had he said that likewise through Mrs. Eddy's work and teaching the sinful have been reformed and the broken-hearted comforted.

The healing of the sick is popularly supposed to be all there is to Christian Science, and it is because of this misapprehension that other systems have been so frequently confused with it; but the real mission of Mrs. Eddy's teachings is to lift mankind to that right apprehension of God, and man's relation to Him, which destroys all sin. She says in Science and Health (p. 476). "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick." But it was the "perfect man" that the Saviour saw,—he whose sins had been forgiven (destroyed),—and his constant admonition to those he healed was, "Sin no more." Christian Science is far more than a system of healing without the use of drugs, and the fact that the followers of some particular system eschew drugs does not necessarily make them Christian Scientists.

Mrs. Eddy's work has not only healed the sick, but it has elevated and spiritualized the consciousness of all who have in any measure comprehended her doctrines and put them into practice. Our Master laid great stress upon the healing of the sick, and obedience to this command is no less important to-day than it was at the beginning of the Christian era. The time is coming when the universal test of Christianity will be the healing of the sick and the reformation of the sinful,—"Ye shall know them by their fruits,"—and that there now is a growing demand for this healing in connection with the other offices of the Church, but goes to prove that the testing time is not so very far distant.

Archibald McLellan.

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