Article July 15, 1911 Issue

When I was at school, one of the teachers with whom I...

C. L. Ramsay

Aberdeen (Scot.) Gazette

When I was at school, one of the teachers with whom I studied geometry used to impress upon the class that before attempting the solution of any problem, the first necessity is to get a thoroughly clear understanding of what it is that has to be done. If all those who undertake to criticize Christian Science would abide by this axiom, and begin by taking the trouble to assure themselves what Christian Science actually is, and what it is doing for mankind, I can confidently assert that there would be much less criticism of the system and much time and trouble saved.

Your correspondent who signs himself "Anti-Humbug" begins by quoting certain passages from the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" so far, so good. But unfortunately, he next proceeds to interpret those passages, and here he goes sadly astray, and draws no doubt a very entertaining picture, but one which bears no relation at all to the subject in hand. According to him, Christian Scientists must be fit for nothing but a lunatic asylum, whereas, in actual fact, experience shows them to be a remarkably sane and sober set of people, going quietly about their business and accomplishing it much more satisfactorily than before, owing to the better health, larger sympathies, wider outlook, and increase power of self-control which the knowledge of Christian Science has brought to them. And here let me say that the time has gone by when it is pertinent to ask incredulously, "Does it work?" Most assuredly it does, as the ever increasing number of those who have been healed and reformed by its means can testify. For the last forty years Christian Science has been put to the test as no other system of theology or philosophy has been tested, and if it had not stood the test it would have disappeared from the world long ago; and the test is the same as that applied by the Master when he said, "These signs shall follow them that believe ... they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."

Christian Science teaches that God is infinite Spirit, unchanging Love, ever-present intelligence or Mind, creating, sustaining, governing all. If He is infinite, there can be nothing that is not included in this infinity, and this explains the Scripture, "In him we live, and move, and have our being." It teaches that man's individuality is as immortal as that of God, in whose image and likeness he is made; that matter, sin, disease, all evil, being opposed to the nature of eternal Spirit, can be no real essential part of that which is the image or reflection of Spirit, and hence must be the result of misconception or error, which the true understanding of the nature of God and man must dispel and destroy. This understanding that the nature of the real man is essentially pure, and that sin is no part of him, has lifted many a one from the depths of despondency, and freed hundreds from bondage to every sort of sinful habit and desire. Christian Science is essentially a practical system; it means overcoming evil of every name and nature with good. Far from discarding prayer, the Christian Scientist acknowledges no other means whereby any good can be accomplished, and his constant endeavor is to gain that knowledge of God and His Christ which the Saviour declared to be life eternal.

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