Article January 23, 1909 Issue

THE LECTURES

with contributions from J. V. Bourland, J. L. Cooper, F. Harley Davis, Charles M. Conant, C. Edwin Pierce

One of the most representative audiences that has assembled in Fort Smith for many months gathered at the Grand Opera House Thursday night [Nov. 19] and heard with great interest the powerful lecture on Christian Science delivered by Frank H. Leonard of Brooklyn. He was introduced by Judge J. V. Bourland, who said in part,—

I come as a student; indeed, truth to admit, I can make no claim to a general acquaintance with the literature of Christian Science; although in all frankness let me confess that, having studied its fundamental work by Mrs. Eddy, and tested its teachings by every canon at my command, not one of them am I prepared to deny as untrue. Having thus tested, ever so imperfectly, what institutional influence or personal motive shall debar me from further reading, or from hearing, under whatever auspices, an exposition of truth whose sole animus manifestly is the betterment of humanity?

"Nearer, my God, to Thee," shorn of the purely mythological, is a prayer which is destined ultimately to have universal rational cognition. Standing squarely upon Biblical grounds, the free mind may readily perceive that rugged orthodoxy or the statical habit of thought has held science at arm's length as something essentially un-christian; but this disposition, happily, is gradually losing ground; for the difficulty, as the least that may be said, has not been with true science, since how can there have been any rational ground for antagonism, when we know that science at last is but truth ascertained, complete knowledge! Science, broadly, is the orderly examination not only of objective phenomena as affecting states of consciousness, but it comprehends an examination of consciousness itself, as a phenomenon or manifestation of divine Mind. Nor is it at all competent to limit the sphere of science to so-called physical phenomena and relations, or to substitute non-rational faith as a means of correspondence with the infinite.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

MRS. EDDY TAKES NO PATIENTS