Article April 15, 1911 Issue

Because the teachings of Christian Science are contrary...

James Phelps—Oshkosh, Wis.

Northwestern

Because the teachings of Christian Science are contrary to human experience, is it wise to reject them? Now, as a matter of fact, theory generally precedes and is in advance of practice. It is always valuable to have a high ideal, even if one fails to realize it perfectly in practice. Surely there can be no harm in accepting the Biblical statements that man is made in God's image and likeness; that he has dominion over all the power of the enemy, and that nothing shall by any means harm him; that if he drinks any deadly thing, it shall not hurt him; that if he believes in Christ he shall never see death.

If God is Spirit, as the Scriptures aver, then surely His image and likeness is spiritual and is not subject to pain, disease, and death. Doubtless Jesus knew that his disciples would not realize perfection for some time, after he admonished them to be perfect even as their Father in heaven was perfect, but that did not hinder him from giving the command and expecting them to achieve perfection as rapidly as possible. In like manner, Mrs. Eddy, while teaching the unreality of matter, pain, disease, sin, and death, on the basis that God, Spirit, made everything that was made and pronounced it very good, never taught her followers to expect that she would not pass from mortal vision as other people do, or that for an indefinite time the belief in these ills would not afflict the human race. However, we may rejoice that as a result of Mrs. Eddy's teaching hundreds of thousands of intelligent men and women bear insistent testimony of relief from sin and disease, pain and fear, while many have been brought back from the very verge of the grave; agnostics have been reclaimed, families reunited, harmony in homes has been restored, consumption and cancer cured.

Did Jesus (whom Christian Scientists acknowledge as the Wayshower) speak and act as though he firmly believed sin and sickness to be real? He said of the woman, who had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, "Satan hath bound her." At another place he said: "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

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