Article September 11, 1909 Issue

Christian Science cannot fail

W. J. Bonnin

Blackpool (Eng.) Times

Christian Science cannot fail. Students of Christian Science may. The only real proof of the science of mathematics lies in the application of it, and a failure to work out a problem is failure in the application and not of the science itself. So it is with Christian Science.

Christian Science does not deny that sin, suffering, and death are facts to our physical senses. It teaches, however, that these senses can tell us nothing of the realities of existence, but only of material phenomena. "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The supreme aim of man must surely be to comprehend in as full degree as may be these eternal things; any other aim must in comparison fall into insignificance. To study Christian Science is to develop the capacity for such comprehension. It enables one to see the law of God, which is a perfect law throughout His creation, constituting His omnipresence and disclosing all that is not perfection as temporal and unreal, as human beliefs having no foundation in truth. "The law," wrote Paul, "of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." Could the law of sin and death be a true eternal law, if it is possible to escape it? Christian Science teaches that such a law has no more force than its victims endue it with, and that just so long as we ascribe power to it, so long are we breaking the First Commandment, and so long shall we suffer in consequence.

To compare a Christian today with our Lord's disciples, not in regard to spiritual understanding attained, but to capacity for such understanding, cannot surely be presumptuous, if we are to consider obedience to the mandate "Be ye therefore perfect" as an attainable ideal. Christian Science knows no other ideal, and our progress toward it is manifested only by the overcoming of sin and sickness, the demonstrating of our knowledge of their falsity. "I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye." So wrote Ezekiel, and Christian Science says, Turn yourselves, and live ye.

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