Article May 4, 1912 Issue

In a recent issue of a religious paper published in Dayton,...

Lloyd B. Coate

Dayton (Ohio) Journal

In a recent issue of a religious paper published in Dayton, Ohio, the editor writes on the subject of "Final Authority," and after referring to Catholics and Mormons, says: "The Christian Science people say it [the final authority] is Mrs. Eddy and her interpretation of the Bible."

Believing that such a statement sent broadcast leaves a wrong impression with many, the writer desires to state what he knows of Mrs. Eddy's attitude toward the Bible. On page 109 of her text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the author states in substance that after her healing in 1866, through the power of God, from an injury pronounced incurable by the physician attending her, she spent three years searching the Scriptures, reading little else, and was rewarded with the discovery which she named "Christian Science." The same Principle, or law of God, which enabled Jesus to do his mighty works, had restored her to health after being given up to die, and has been the means of restoring unnumbered people to health after other means had failed.

On page 126 of Science and Health she says: "I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in 'the straight and narrow way' of Truth." On page 437 she writes: "The attorney, Christian Science, then read from the supreme statute-book, the Bible, certain extracts on the Rights of Man, remarking that the Bible was better authority than Blackstone." On page 547 she says, "The Scriptures are very sacred." The first tenet of the Christian Science church reads: "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Science and Health, p. 497). In April, 1895, Mrs. Eddy ordained the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" to be the only pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, throughout this and other lands. In the public services of Christian Scientists, Bible selections comprise one half of the Lesson-Sermon, while the other half consists of correlative passages from the Christian Science text-book.

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