Article March 6, 1909 Issue

The true test of Christ fellowship or following must be...

William Royle—England.

S. Anne's Express

The true test of Christ fellowship or following must be in the measure of obedience to the Master's commands: "Preach the gospel," "Heal the sick." For centuries it has been the practice of Christian ministers and workers to content themselves with offering the gospel's salvation to the sinner, leaving the sick to seek deliverance through any and every means except the spiritual. Christian Scientists seek to reunify their Master's injunction by healing the sick as well as by preaching the gospel to the sinner, and, without trespassing upon the rights or convictions of others, they claim, in all humility, to have found the way to overcome not only sin, but sickness and disease, sorrow and woe, as well. "These signs shall follow them that believe," and the beneficiaries of Christian Science are gratefully testifying to the freedom they have enjoyed since they found healing and subsequent immunity from sickness and disease. Many of these erstwhile sufferers came in despair to Christian Science as a last resort, when human skill and material means had failed, and not even a shadow of hope remained, apart from the help divine.

Christian Science teaches that in Christ, Truth, we have a full salvation from sickness as well as from sin, and that the promise, "The works that I do shall he do also," is as capable of proof now as at any time since the declaration was made, if the conditions underlying it are understood and fulfilled. If there is only one God, and God is Mind, scientifically there can be but one Mind, and on this basis of reasoning Christian Scientists recognize the divine Mind as the only Mind or intelligence there is or can be. Following this teaching as the fundamental basis of their religion, Christian Scientists are proving daily, in proportion to their understanding, that God never intended mankind to suffer from sickness or to undergo any of the ills which the flesh is commonly said to be heir to, and that the only suffering to which one is under bondage is his own sin, and to this only so long as he finds pleasure in committing sin.

Contrary to our critic's opinion, Christian Science is reaching the poor as well as the rich; the ignorant as well as the educated; since Christ, Truth, is no respecter of persons. It is quite a new theory, and surely peculiar to our critics, that suffering is a condition of make-believe to the educated and the rich, while the poor in this world's possessions and learning alone find a reality in suffering. All mankind without exception is seeking a surcease from its burden of sickness, sorrow, and woe, and when they really understand through Christian Science that God is an immanent, ever-present God of love, who is as available and as ready now to heal all their diseases as He was in the days of primitive Christianity, they will welcome the teaching of Christian Science, and number themselves with those who are now realizing with gratitude the truth of the promise, "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world."

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