Article November 16, 1912 Issue

LOVING INTELLIGENCE

WILLIAM D. MC CRACKAN, M.A.

The term intelligence, as frequently used, is apt to leave an impression of coldness. It is too often assumed that to manifest intelligence means to manifest merely a keen, calculating sagacity which is wholly of the head and knows nothing of the heart. When the student learns that God who is Mind is also infinite Love, and that love is absolutely essential to real intelligence, he quickly perceives that Christian Science is teaching him the meaning of loving intelligence.

Thus the sufferer who is told that God is Mind is not presented with a cold, barren fact, but his consciousness is really opened to a living truth, palpitating with joy and bliss. The Pharisee, hampered by pride of intellect, must be taught the lesson that a little child can manifest more real intelligence and more true wisdom than he. The child Jesus at the age of twelve astonished the doctors, the learned men in the temple, by his understanding and answers; and so the picture of Jesus, "sitting in the midst of the doctors," has throughout the centuries strongly appealed to artists of every Christian nation as an illustration of the might of childlike wisdom. As Jesus grew to manhood and entered into his public ministry, he rejoiced that the Father had revealed unto babes the things which were hid from the wise and prudent. His unlearned followers proved his teachings to be demonstrable by their acts of healing. His Christianity was not appreciated by the quality of thought calling itself worldly wise, but by the child thought represented in his humble followers. Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum, names used by him to represent arrogant and unreceptive states of thought, could not perceive the glory of his untrammeled vision concerning God and man.

No more can the would-be critic of today, bound by materialistic superstitions, understand the teaching and the works of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy very justly refers to "the tangled barbarisms of learning" (Science and Health, p. 195). The tyranny, the ruthless and unscrupulous bondage of the belief of life in matter, with its attendant train of fears,—all this results from the idolatrous worship of a so-called material mind divorced from God. The human mind, caught and held fast in "the tangled barbarisms of learning," is in no condition to express an intelligent opinion concerning Christian Science. It does not know enough of Truth to weigh justly the evidence in behalf of the works of Christian Science. It is incapable of appreciating the gift of infinite bounty offered by Christian Science to the weary and world-worn. It has not yet become disgusted with its own emptiness or felt the hunger for the bread of life. Christian Science heals the sick. For nearly half a century this fact has been before the world, and multitudes gladly witness to their own healing by its means. In trying to dispute this evidence of the power of Spirit, the tangled and barbaric mortal sense displays its ignorance. Yet it may be helpful to all concerned to notice the particular error into which it falls.

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