Our critic says: "Anybody who has made any study...

Willis D. McKinstry

Chanute (Kan.) Tribune

Our critic says: "Anybody who has made any study whatever of psychology knows something of the marvelous influence of the mind upon physical organism." Kindly grant me space to say that this statement alone is sufficient evidence to prove our critic's conception of Christian Science is a misapprehension of its teachings.

Christian Science is purely spiritual, as God, Spirit, is its basis. One can never understand Spirit and its manifestation through the study of matter or from a physical view-point. Jesus said: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Psychology does not teach one of Spirit, it treats of the so-called human mind and its claim of activities; it was to this mind Paul referred when he said, "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace."

We agree with our critic that to eliminate worry and fear gives a surcease from human discord, but this is not sufficient. To have a full and perfect salvation one must be liberated from every sense testimony. The pleasures and pains of the material senses must be reckoned with as a claim of intelligence, substance, and power apart from God, who is omniscient and omnipotent. To think or believe that one with his own mind, so called, can free himself from the claim of sin and suffering of his own body, is a sin of itself, and as all sin brings suffering, this sin of believing that man is something of himself must be overcome.

Faith advanced to understanding is essential, but a blind faith or trust does not remove or destroy sin. Mankind must know, must understand that "in him we live, and move, and have our being." And the Master said, "I can of mine own self do nothing." One might have faith in numbers, but to be able to solve the problems in arithmetic he must understand the principle and rule of numbers sufficiently to apply them. Christian Science provides mankind with the way of salvation, it gives him a way of escape from material sense, because it imparts a Principle and rule with which to apply the demonstrations and teachings of Christ Jesus.

Mental suggestion is the claim that one human mind can take possession of and control another human mind. This belief, if true, would subject mankind to the mental influence of any one who might desire to control or influence him, whether for good or evil; therefore he would be at the mercy of friend and foe alike, and it is from this false and sinful condition or belief that mortals must be saved. If mankind would escape from the bondage of material sense, exodus must begin with an exalted faith and trust in the omnipotence of God; this conception leads into spiritual understanding and the human conception leads place to the divine idea. This process of healing is far from being the control of one human mind over another.

All Christendom acknowledges Christ Jesus as the way of salvation; he healed all human discord and suffering without the aid of material remedies. No one will dispute that his way was the true way, or way of Truth, for God is Truth; and as Truth is changeless, Jesus' way must be the true and only way, now. An understanding of the Science of being as taught in Christian Science heals the sick, reforms the sinner, comforts the sorrowing, gives joy for mourning, replaces want with contentment, and poverty with prosperity.

We are living in an age of progress, men and women are grasping the spiritual facts of being—they are learning the truth of things; therefore they are no longer satisfied with the doctrines which promise only a future reward for right doing. The church as defined by Christian Science is: "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle. The church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick" (Science and Health, p. 583).

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