Article June 26, 1909 Issue

Christian Science is essentially the primitive Christianity...

Abbot Edes Smith

St. Paul (Minn.) Dispatch

Christian Science is essentially the primitive Christianity of Christ, as taught and practised by Jesus, by his apostles, and by the early Christians. Every reform, every advance in truth has received bitter opposition and often persecution at the hands of advocates of the prevailing creeds and theories. "History repeats itself." Orthodoxy of today has been the heresy of the past, and the persecutors of today have been the persecuted of the past. Even Christ Jesus suffered crucifixion at the hands of the theologians of his time for what they termed his heresy and blasphemy; and in every age those who loved and followed him most devotedly and most unselfishly have, as he foretold, drunk of his cup.

Christendom has for centuries practically nullified one half of the Bible by reading into it a man-made limitation, namely, that all the positive promises of the Bible concerning God's help in sickness are only beautiful stories of how good God used to be, two or three thousand years ago, to a few favored people, and that He who is "no respecter of persons," and who is "the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever" has changed His eternal methods and no longer fulfils these former promises. Christian Science accepts the Bible in its entirety, accepts the "undivided garment," the whole of Christianity as taught and practised by our Saviour, by apostles, and by the early Christians, and as tried by his test: "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Jesus taught unequivocally and without any limitation that a proper following of him produces physical healing, as well as moral, and that such fruits are the natural result of absolute reliance on God alone. Evil cannot stand in the presence of Him who is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." Hence, obedience to Him whom to know aright Jesus defines as "life eternal," implies exemption from physical evil as well as from moral. God's word unquestionably protects and saves not only from moral evil, but also from physical.

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