Article May 22, 1909 Issue

Whenever knowledge of any science is accurate and...

Olcott Haskell

Palo Alto (Cal.) Times

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. So it is with Christian Scientists. While they love and respect their teacher, Mrs. Eddy, yet it is not the following of her personality that has given life, growth, and unity to this movement. Every student is encouraged to discern the great truths of God and man for himself; and every practitioner must absolutely succeed in doing this, or he can have little success in helping others. Such workers have long ago learned that the problems of life are not to be solved by any creed or formula, but must be met on the ground of understanding—even that understanding which reaches results through the application of divine Principle.

Those of the onlookers who today acknowledge that Christian Science does produce results in the healing of both sickness and sin, but who have not yet looked long enough nor deep enough to discern the underlying Principle, adopt the most absurd theories to account for these successes. No action can be correctly explained to a thinking mind without the admission of intelligence—Mind, and since matter is not self-intelligent, we are forced to the recognition of an intelligence apart from and above the forms of matter. Defined thus, intelligence, or God, is the Principle of all true being, and the universe may then be consistently explained. This was the truth upon which Jesus stood, and all his acts were natural deductions from this premise of the rule of a good, all-powerful, and intelligence God.

We may enlarge upon this concept of God by employing different terms to express different views of His all-inclusive nature. Thus Mind may be used as a synonym for God if by this term we mean not the circumscribed and sinful human mind, but the infinite, loving, acting intelligence of the universe. Similarly Life may be used as a synonym for God, if it is taken to mean the Life of all life, the living, loving Principle of all true being. Thus used the words mind and life should always be written with initial capital letters, to distinguish such usage from the commonly accepted association of life with organized matter and animal forms.

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