Article October 23, 1909 Issue

We are of the opinion that the best way for a clergyman...

Alfred Farlow

Shreveport (La.) Journal

We are of the opinion that the best way for a clergyman to prevent his flock from migrating is to make his own gospel so practical and desirable as to forestall any desire to look for "greener pastures." Whether or not it may be in good taste for a minister of the gospel to spend his time in an effort to discredit the religion of others instead of faithfully preaching his own sense of the gospel, we think all will agree that he should at least avoid any statements that are likely to give a wrong impression of religion which he attacks.

Christ is the divine idea appearing in consciousness, which governed the human personality of Jesus and by means of which he did his wonderful works. We may illustrate the first and second coming of Christ in the following manner. A mathematician demonstrates a proposition on the board and thus proves that he is a mathematician, that he understands mathematics; but this is not sufficient to make a mathematician of the pupil. Nevertheless this may be considered the first coming of the mathematician, and it is an essential feature in the process of making mathematics practical. By and by the pupil learns what the mathematician knows. He acquires the mentality of the mathematician and is thereafter able to take up the book and demonstrate the proposition as it has been done by the teacher; and thus he, too, becomes a mathematician. This latter experience may be thought of as the second coming of the knowledge which constituted the mathematician.

Similarly, the first coming of Christ was in the person of Jesus, who understood and demonstrated the truth in all its perfection. The second coming is the realization of what he understood, by means of which the disciple is able to do what he did, in confirmation of his promise, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." The difficulty with our critic is that he does not follow the Scriptural injunction to compare spiritual things with spiritual in his discussion of what Mrs. Eddy teaches. He admits that Christian Science is founded upon the premise, "God is a Spirit;" that Spirit made all that was made and made it spiritually, and therefore that the universe, including man, is spiritual and not material. The gentleman also knows, if he has read the Christian Science text-book at all, that Christian Science recognizes the false belief of life, substance, and intelligence in matter, which must be overcome by spiritual growth.

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