Article May 7, 1910 Issue

With regard to the lecturer's explanation that the rapid...

Algernon Hervey Bathurst

Whitley (Eng.) Seaside Chronicle

With regard to the lecturer's explanation that the rapid spread of the movement was due to the promise it held out of "relief from bodily pain and sickness," let me say that an important feature, indeed the basis of the teachings of Christian Science, is the understanding that the patient treated in Christian Science must be morally regenerated as well as healed physically. Christ Jesus made it perfectly clear to the indignant scribes that true healing included also spiritual regeneration, when he said, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" For centuries the command to preach the gospel and heal the sick has been divided by the church, and, while clergymen are expected to obey the first, it is left to doctors and hospitals to obey the latter half of the command. This was never meant to be, and never should have been. The success of the Christian Science movement is due entirely to the fact that its teachings point out the necessity and importance of strict obedience to the teachings of Jesus the Christ; and should objection be made to Christian Science because it includes what in the teaching of other denominations is lacking?

Now as to the word "real" to which Dr. Warschauer refers, the lecturer is clearly under a misapprehension as to the true meaning of the word as used by Mrs. Eddy. It is generally admitted that there is but one great cause or creator, Spirit, God, who is infinite good. Since good cannot produce evil, the only logical deduction is that God's creation is perfect, and that therefore His spiritual perfect creation alone is real. Consequently, since evil, including sickness and sin, is not good, it is no part of God's creation, and is unreal. That evil exists relatively, or in so far as the human consciousness is concerned, is perfectly true; but Jesus came not to destroy, but to fulfil God's law, to prove that the testimony of the physical senses is wholly unreliable and false. This he did by healing the sick, reforming the sinner, feeding the hungry, and raising the dead. Now it is quite clear that if sickness or sin, or, for the matter of that, any of the testimony of the physical senses, is real or true, Christ Jesus would have done none of his "mighty works," for he could manifestly not have destroyed anything that God had made. And Christian Scientists are learning that their success in overcoming sin, sickness, and all discord is in exact proportion to their unswerving allegiance to his teachings.

During the course of his remarks the lecturer implied that the teachings of Christian Science are pantheistic, whereas the fact is that between Christian Science and pantheism there is a great gulf fixed. Webster defines pantheism as the doctrine that the universe, taken or conceived of as a whole, is God; the doctrine that there is no God but the combined forces and laws which are manifested in the existing universe. This is the very antithesis of the teachings of Christian Science, which declares that the belief in the coexistence of matter and spirit is the forbidden fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil—a house divided against itself.

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