Article July 17, 1909 Issue

Perhaps one of the most popular fallacies regarding...

William E. Brown

Portland (Ore.) Spectator

Perhaps one of the most popular fallacies regarding the method of Christian Science is the idea that it ignores sin and sickness, and that if one only thinks he is well he will be so. This misconception is, of course, based upon a total misapprehension of the teaching of Science and Health, the text-book of Christian Science; there is nothing in this book that could be distorted into such a conclusion. Mrs. Eddy emphatically teaches that those who sin must suffer, and that the only way to maintain spiritual and physical health is to overcome sin and spiritual ignorance in all its forms. Christian Science recognizes that sin and disease are very real to the sufferer, and that they must be destroyed, not ignored.

Probably the most misunderstood proposition of Christian Science is its teaching regarding the non-existence of matter. The statement that "there is no matter," is not meant to convey the idea that all the objects in the world about us do not exist, nor that man has no body, but it is equivalent to saying that these are not material, as they seem to be to the senses. The declaration that "there is no matter" only partially defines the Christian Science doctrine; but when considered as a consequent of its correlative statement, "All is Mind," its meaning immediately becomes apparent, i.e., that what is generally called matter is but a misconception of mental ideas.

It is a self-evident fact that Mind and matter as opposed entities could not exist, and since Mrs. Eddy has given forth her discovery of the allness of Mind, many physical scientists have changed their views regarding matter and agree with her that we live in a thought-world and that matter does not exist. Among others who subscribe to this theory of matter are Professors Ostwald, Huxley, Crookes, Lodge, and Curie, the latter being the famous discoverer of radium.

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