Article April 17, 1909 Issue

It is obviously necessary to approach this subject from...

Karl Knudsen—London, Eng.

Onlooker

It is obviously necessary to approach this subject from the point of view of one who has observed and experienced physical healing by spiritual means, and who stands before the question. "What next?" He sees that Christian Science cannot remain simply a means of ridding oneself of discomfort and pain. On page 150 of Science and Health it is stated: "The mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing."

What is called "religion in business" is generally viewed with suspicion, and yet among those who make little or no profession of religious belief one meets with an amount of manly honesty, generosity, and kindliness which contradicts the lamentations about the special wickedness of latter-day business life. Why this suspicion of the profession of religion while engaged in the conduct of business? Partly, of course, because it has so often served as a cloak; but chiefly, I think, on account of the supposed impossibility of applying the Sermon on the Mount to practical business. Many professing Christians tacitly, if not audibly, admit this, and draw a distinct line between their business and their religious life. Henrik Ibsen has caricatured this exclusion of one's religion from being an active influence upon the conduct of business in his study of human character represented by Peer Gynt. Peer had been carrying on a lucrative trade in idol-images to China, and tried to balance his account with God by sending out missionaries to checkmate the images. It is the old story of making religion a belief in a future-world salvation typified by the question of the Pharisees: "Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath days?" They did not see that the healing of all manner of discord, sickness, poverty (witness the feeding of the multitude), and death was not only the inevitable result, but also the requisite proof of the truth of the religion preached by Jesus of Nazareth, and which he promised should make men free. The Pharisees had reduced religion to a set of doctrines without vitalizing power.

The Bible promises, to those who believe, that they shall receive power to overcome discord in the way Jesus did. Christian Scientists interpret the word "believe" to mean "understand." Failing to find in the orthodox churches a religion which would meet the demands of a logical reading of the Gospels and the demands of their sense of justice, many business men prefer what is called "a religion of their own" to a halting acceptance of the teachings of the Bible. Now it cannot be gainsaid that Christian Science, with all its seeming paradoxes, has given to many men of affairs, often acknowledged agnostics, a religion that satisfies their need. They have found that it sheds a new light on the Bible, revealing it as being the history of the gradual dawning upon the human mind of a knowledge of that ever available law of the universe which not only heals the sick, but will solve any and every human problem. While striving to gain a knowledge of this law, they find that the appellation, "Science," is not only justified, but is, in fact, the only word that is adequate. They find that Christian Science removes the antagonism between natural science and the Bible, and that it does, in fact, give them a far more intelligent understanding of the phenomena of the material universe than they had previously possessed.

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