Article September 16, 1911 Issue

It is not every public speaker who is favored by a would be...

Charles K. Skinner

Fennville (Mich.) Herald

It is not every public speaker who is favored by a wouldbe interpreter, but it seems that the recent lecturer on Christian Science in your city had this experience. The fact that the interpreter did not understand the subject of the lecture, however, has led him to make some unfortunate statements as a critic. The seemingly great bone of contention with which he struggled was the unreality of sin, sickness, and death. Now the remedy for this is very simple. Jesus gave it to Peter when that earnest disciple was much disturbed over John's problem. He said: "What is that to thee? follow thou me." The truth or falsity of a religion is dependent on the foundation upon which it is built. The proof will be shown in the fruits of its works. If it regenerates the sinner, reforms the drunkard, heals the sick, and restores harmony in homes where discord has held sway, all the criticism, misrepresentation, and ridicule will weigh nothing against it. If it does not fulfil its promises, it will fall by its own weakness and needs no calumny from its opponents.

Christian Science is doing all these things in every land in the known world, and because of this its supporters are forging to the front and publishing its truths in their lives. Your readers are told that the result of Christian Science teaching upon a man who at one time was an earnest preacher was to make him "curse and swear." Let me say if this unfortunate condition ever did occur, it was the lack and not the knowledge of Christian Science which caused it. The simplest analysis of the words Christian Science is "knowledge of the Christ," and if one really had this knowledge he could not misuse it. The injustice of attacking a religion because an asserted adherent has slipped and fallen could be illustrated in the life of another man not a thousand miles from Detroit. He had been a successful pastor in an orthodox church, an ardent temperance worker, and doubtless had helped many to better lives, yet through yielding to temptations the past two years have seen him go lower and lower until this month he passed away at an institute for such cases. Contrary to the first instance cited, no one has been heard to charge the church of which he was a member, or the temperance organization with which he labored, with leading him astray; yet the cases are similar.

Now, as to the unreality of sin, sickness, and death—the Scriptures assert that God made all that was made, and that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." If this is true, there is but one of two positions to take: Either God made sin, sickness, and death, and hence it must be real, good, and eternal, or else God did not create them and they are unreal to Him and to the perfect man created in His image and likeness. Christian Science takes the last position and proves it by the Scriptures. The teaching of the text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, is based on the spiritual creation of man and the universe, as given in the first chapter of Genesis. Here it is shown that God created man perfect, and endowed him with the birthright of "dominion over all."

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