Article January 9, 1909 Issue

The "sensational incident" at the Young Men's Christian Association...

Edward H. Carman

Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle

The "sensational incident" at the Young Men's Christian Association service is to be deplored, and no one regrets it more than the friend whose zeal for the moment got the better of his judgment. When one's religious convictions are assailed, if those convictions are deep-rooted, it is hard not to take the attack as personal. Back of the "sensational incident" is a cause far deeper than the reverend gentleman's attack on Christian Science or our friend's interruption and defense. If he had been more Christianly scientific he would have silently prayed as did Jesus, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." In this silent prayer he would have breathed a benediction that would have been a prayer for good—a blessing upon the whole situation.

Now to reply to the attack, which when summed up was about as follows: that Mrs. Eddy is not the Discoverer of Christian Science; that Christian Scientists do not believe in matter and deny the evidence that Jesus was immaculately conceived, and that he did not die nor that he was resurrected, and that Christian Scientists do not pray. It is with a sense of kindness and charity that the defenders of Christian Science reply to adverse criticisms and attacks on its Discoverer and Founder, Mrs. Eddy, and the doctrines of Christian Science. Many who now are Christian Scientists formerly condemned its teachings and said hard things against its Discoverer, because they did not know any better—when they learned better they repented of the error and became earnest seekers for the joy and comfort which they have since found. Paul, a religious zealot before he was a Christian, went about the country armed with authority to persecute, condemn, and destroy Christians. When the truth dawned on his darkened consciousness, his physical body was so agitated that he was stricken with blindness and he had to be taken to Ananias to be treated and healed of his blindness, proving that the false material sense of sight must be instructed by spiritual sense to be healed of its falsity. All error must be seen before Truth can destroy it.

Jesus' defamers called him a glutton and a wine-bibber,—a blasphemer in league with Beelzebub, the prince of devils,—but these accusations and false opinions did not make him either the one or the other. Neither do all the misconceptions of Mrs. Eddy and her life-work, and the misunderstanding and misinterpretation of the teachings of Christian Science, make her other than a godly woman and her teachings Christian and scientific. The only possible way to understand Mrs. Eddy and her place in the history of the unfolding of the truth in human consciousness is to gain some understanding of Christian Science, and the only way to understand Christian Science is to see Mrs. Eddy in the light of one fitted to receive a revelation and then to study her writings without bias or prejudice. She does not claim to have invented Christian Science, but she does claim to have discovered it, and to have also discovered, through years of consecrated study of the Scriptures, its rules of demonstration and practical application to the daily needs of mortals, and she has to-day the joy of seeing her discovery established in the hearts and consciousness of men and women who are making this scientific Christianity practical—with "signs following." ...

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The "sensational incident" at the Young Men's Christian Association...

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