Article May 28, 1910 Issue

Christian Science has now been known and taught...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

The Christian Science Monitor

Christian Science has now been known and taught long enough for its effect on a second generation to be observed. When this Science is grasped by an adult, displacing beliefs to which he has long been accustomed, it gives him a new world; the world of the material senses is exchanged for the world of spiritual sense. The quickness and completeness of this change vary with different students, but any one who has formed the impressions of childhood without the teachings of Christian Science must have accepted as truth much that Christian Science rejects as error; and this must be in large part uprooted and cast out before the spiritual view of things becomes more natural to him than the material. In his talk with Nicodemus Christ Jesus likened this process to being born again.

On the other hand, children who develop with the knowledge of Christian Science learn less which must be unlearned. Having the understanding of Christian Science by which to test everything offered as knowledge, they learn the lessons of human life for what they are worth in the eternal scale of values. To them heavenly things are normal and natural, and they can therefore say or think, when confronted by earthly things, "We speak that we do know." This enables such children to obtain an education of the most practical character.

Human life appears to be mainly the pursuit of happiness. Those who seek it in wrong-doing have no right to find it; and they find none that lasts. Those who seek happiness in right-doing are entitled to find it; and they do find it when they know how to do right. The amount of happiness that enters one's life depends much on one's estimate of joy. It depends also on his philosophy toward that which threatens his happiness. These depend chiefly on his understanding of reality; and this is given by Christian Science. As this understanding deepens and widens with the third and fourth generations, error will have fewer witnesses, and it will be progressively easier to be overcome "until," as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 67 of "Retrospection and Introspection," "the false claim called sin is finally lost for lack of witness."

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