Article November 12, 1910 Issue

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE FROM A JEWISH STANDPOINT

JEANNETTE S. GROSSMAN

Do people realize what it means to see so many Jewish people coming to the Christian Science churches? The numbers are increasing daily, and Jews are to be found everywhere among the practitioners and earnest students. To one who understands the history of these people and their traditions, it is the strongest proof of the efficacy of Christian Science. To appreciate this great change in thought, we must go back through the centuries and admire them for clinging so tenaciously to their faith, their one God, in the face of all persecution. We read of the dreadful crimes committed against the Jews in the name of Christianity, and how they worshiped their God in secret and died rather than acknowledge Christ. Even today in some foreign countries, the Jews are being persecuted in the name of Christ. An example of this is given in one of last year's plays, "The Melting-pot," which has been presented in several cities.

For years societies have been formed for converting the Jews, especially in the ghettos of Chicago and New York; but it is generally admitted that the converts have been very few. It is also said that those same converted Jews did not make good Christians. Then why is it that so many of them have come and are still coming into Christian Science, and are better men and women because of it? Is it not because God has given a divine message to this age, even as in the days of the prophets,—the message which has come to us through Christian Science? In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy explains what the Christ, the Messiah, really is; that Christ is more than the corporeal Jesus; that the Christ is expressed in the spirit of love, of goodness, of purity, of truth,—all that really is; that the coming of the Messiah is the coming to our hearts of God's spiritual idea,—the perfect man.

Many Jews will tell you how they scorned the word Christ—that they could not tolerate a cross, for did it not typify all they had endured for centuries? and when they had occasion to sing a hymn in which the name Jesus or Christ appeared they either did not sing the hymn or passed over the word. Not so, however, after they have come to understand Christian Science. The name of Christ means much to them now, and they enter into the spirit of the Christian Science services and sing the hymns with all their hearts. They know that Science and Health teaches the truth, for it has healed many of them and taught them to read the New Testament (hitherto a sealed book for them); and, what is more, to love it. It has also made them love the Old Testament more than ever, because they read it in a new light. Science and Health is indeed a "Key to the Scriptures."

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