President Eliot of Harvard was invested last week with the decoration of the first class of the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan, by Baron Takahira, Japanese ambassador, acting for the Mikado.
The
writer is in receipt of a list of questions which practically cover the entire problem of human existence and destiny, but he could only refer the questioner to the Christian Science text-book for his answers.
Christian Scientists
are growing so rapidly in numbers that their influence in the affairs of government should be recognized as a power for good and a support for civic righteousness.
How
can we at this period, as students of Christian Science, answer a few questions that must necessarily arise in the thoughts of all wide-awake, active, loyal workers in our beloved Cause?
Many
a beginner in Christian Science finds it difficult to grasp the conception of the infinity of Life, Truth, and Love; in other words, the conception of the allness of God.
Whenever knowledge of any science is accurate and exact, then we find absolute agreement among all faithful students of the subject; but such uniformity of thought and action cannot rightly be attributed to the following of any personal leader, for it is the unity of the subject-study that produces unity among its students.
The attempt to belittle the efforts of Christian Scientists because the results of their practice are not always instantaneous will not find a very hearty response in the minds of just and tolerant readers.
When the Master of Christianity declared, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing," he evidently meant that the only thing which gives life and existence to creation is Spirit, and that the flesh, which means the physical or material in contradistinction to the spiritual, is altogether unprofitable.
Christian Science teaches that the effect of drugs and food on the human body is the result of the belief attached to them, and that consequently, speaking absolutely, there is no difference between them.
Through understanding that God is Spirit and All, the only cause and creator, and that Spirit's substance and creation are spiritual, Christian Science overcomes the carnal belief in material cause and material effect, and thus destroys the results of such belief on the body, thereby healing the sick and reforming the sinful by this spiritualization and purification of consciousness from material sense.
It is very true that Christian Science considers much of the dogma and creed, much of the man-made systems and beliefs which pass current as Christianity, as unnecessary and superfluous.
Christian Science is a religion, the religion of Jesus Christ, and accomplishes its healing and redemptive work by the same method employed by Jesus and his disciples, thus fulfilling the Scriptural promises: "And these signs shall follow them that believe;.
Among the vast number of Christian Scientists are to be found thousands of men and women whom the world has recognized as "intelligent," and who have won honor and distinction in their field of endeavor,—judges, lawyers, business men, clergymen, college professors, doctors, teachers, authors, and many others.
In a recent issue you publish an interview with a medical practitioner, according to which that gentleman would have the public believe that the healing method in Christian Science consists in merely telling a sufferer that he is not suffering.
Other
things being equal, mankind's most effective helper is he who is best able to discern the signs and possibilities of good, and who does not allow any show of stupidity or false sense to disturb his hold upon the promise of better things in those to whom he would minister.
Whenever I have thought of giving testimony to the power of Truth as it has been revealed to us in Christian Science, and which has completely revolutionized my life and thought, I have been largely deterred by a sense of bewilderment as to where best to begin or what to enumerate.
I have thought it a duty I owed to God, to our dear Leader, and to the kind friends who have helped me, to acknowledge the many blessings which have been mine for the last five years or more.
When Christian Science was first presented to me, nearly three years ago, I was suffering from a severe attack of a stomach trouble of many years' standing.
Frank B. Kemp
with contributions from R. G. S. Carter
Among the most common of the objections urged by those who are antagonistic to Christian Science are the following: that it is based upon will-power, etc.
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