Article September 10, 1910 Issue

TRUTH IS RADICAL

MYRTLE CLARK HOVEY.

It is sometimes said by those who have only a slight knowledge of our Leader's teachings, that Mrs. Eddy is too radical in her statements. The present writer remembers that not many years ago she said the same thing, when perusing for the first time our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Then, as thought became divested of some of its error, and as the false, material sense of things gradually faded before the dawn of spiritual understanding, she began to realize that not Mrs. Eddy, but "right is radical" (p. 452).

There is no half-way position between good and evil, Truth and error, right and wrong. The line between these is sharply defined, and Truth permits of no compromise whatever with evil, as the sincere Christian Scientist soon learns. In this connection, it was very surprising to the writer to note apathy and indifference to the temperance cause, upon the part of some professed Christians. Our Leader makes the emphatic statement that "strong drink is unquestionably an evil, and evil cannot be used temperately: its slightest use is abuse; hence the only temperance is total abstinence" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 289). Measured by the high standard given to us by Christ Jesus, he who demonstrated by his every word and deed that good and evil never mingle, when he said, "Ye cannot serve God and mammon," and also by that which is set before us by Mrs. Eddy in all her writings, no true Christian Scientist can fail to discern that there is not one iota of good in the liquor traffic, and that the only possible excuse for its existence is one that is based on selfishness, greed, and lust. Every thinking person who desires to inform himself of the facts, knows that our prisons, jails, almshouses, insane asylums, and orphans' homes are filled with the products of the liquor traffic.

To be sure, we learn in Christian Science that, pushed to its last analysis, the evil of intemperance is but one of many phases of the belief of a life apart from God, and of pleasure and pain in matter; but the understanding of this does not release us "one jot nor one tittle" from our sacred duty to do all in our power to deliver those who do not "know the truth" from the cruel bondage imposed on them by the evil of strong drink; and no selfish love of material gain, no regard for "commercial interests," should sway any professed Christian Scientist one iota, when he is called upon to lend his support and influence in the cause of righteousness—of good versus evil. If he is swayed by commercial reasons to advocate evil in any form, he is declaring that there is good in evil, and thus betraying the Christ by serving evil in the name of good.

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