Article June 12, 1909 Issue

That the personal influence of Mrs. Eddy is a great...

Frederick Dixon—London, England.

World of Dress and Woman's Journal

That the personal influence of Mrs. Eddy is a great moral force in the world, every Christian Scientist is only too eager to affirm. They know far better than any one else the patience, the courage, the fortitude, the long-suffering, and above all, the love which have carried her to the position she now occupies; and yet it is not upon her personality that they base their hopes, but upon the fact that she has shown them that there is an absolute spiritual law,—a law, that is, without variation,—from which men may proceed to demonstrate the Science of being, as Jesus taught it. The personal influence of the individual is a dangerous staff to lean upon; it may at any moment splinter, and pierce the hand. No one could have made this clearer than the critic, in claiming that this influence might be exerted either for good or evil. This is, of course, the inevitable deduction from the admission that the human mind is a factor in spiritual healing, and it is just this premise that Christian Science steadfastly repudiates.

Jesus said: "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." Now, the critic said that personal influence could turn the patient's mind toward good or evil. Granting that this is the case, does it not only prove that the so-called good is only a mitigated from of evil, inasmuch as the mind from which the two proceed must be a tainted source. The belief in the power of evil is necessarily the belief in sin as power, and by sin, wrote Paul to the Romans, death entered the world. Is this not what the writer of the allegory in Genesis had in mind when he wrote of the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

The question, consequently, resolves itself into this: Is there an absolute spiritual law, working out in unvarying harmony, of which the wayfaring man may avail himself? Mrs. Eddy maintains that there is, and points out that Jesus broke every physical law, and demonstrated in doing so that that law was not God's law. The truth is that he healed the sick not by breaking God's law, but by the strictest conformity to it. What he did break was the human sense of law. So long as men believe that physical causation is governed by law, they will be subject to that law; but when they learn that there is no law but God's law, they will realize why Mrs. Eddy has written on pages 52 and 313 of Science and Health, that Jesus of Nazareth was not only "the best man," but "the most scientific man that ever trod the globe." He knew more of law than any other man, because he knew more of God, of Truth; and, knowing more of Truth than any other man, he necessarily demonstrated that knowledge more fully. These demonstrations have been called miracles because they were wonderful to those who believed that law was physical, instead of understanding that it was the working of that divine Mind "with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." And because this law really is law, it can be demonstrated today as it was demonstrated by Jesus. Indeed, it was he who made this demonstration the test of the understanding of his teaching, in saying that those who believed on him should do the miracles he did.

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Mrs. Eddy does not, as our critic says, refer in many...
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