Article August 3, 1912 Issue

For the information of those who may have read the...

Frank Bell

Reading (Pa.) Telegram

For the information of those who may have read the summary of a sermon reproduced in a recent issue, permit me to state that Christian Scientists recognize the phenomena of sickness in human experience as clearly as do other persons, and that they fully agree that "the sick have need of physicians" (healers). So far as Christian Science is concerned there is no occasion for sermonizing on the presence of suffering in the world and the need of healing the sick, because the very existence of the Christian Science movement is an acknowledgment of these things. Christian Science is a religion of healing, and while it makes the alleviation of physical ills subordinate to the overcoming of sin, a large proportion of its members publicly profess to having been attracted to it through the healing of diseases that had baffled other methods of treatment. In virtually every town and city in our land, and in many places throughout the civilized countries of the globe, are to be found Christian Science practitioners who heal the sick, and all these gained their knowledge of healing through the Christian Science text-book referred to in this sermon. How could a book teach one to heal if it taught that there was no occasion for healing?

Mrs. Eddy in her writings does deny the "reality" of sickness, sin, and death, but she states distinctly and repeatedly that this denial relates to the spiritual creation, and not to the mortal beliefs about life. It is unfair and misleading to quote her as to this phase of the subject without citing the distinction here mentioned. Those who persist in trying to make people believe that the practise of Christian Science consists in a silly attempt to ignore facts, are without excuse for this misrepresentation.

Christian Science is indeed a rebuke to any system of belief that would exalt sin or sickness by giving it place or part in the divine plan, thus impiously presuming that God is its author. By offering an explanation of evil that is not inconsistent with the acceptance of the Biblical assurance that God is Love, Christian Science has made it possible for large numbers of thinking people to eschew unbelief. It is difficult to conceive of anything more depressing than for the victim of wicked tendencies or bodily suffering to believe that in some mysterious way divine purpose is being accomplished by means of his enslavement. Show him, on the other hand, that his Maker is no party to his undoing, and there will result a mental attitude of rightful resistance to the encroachments of evil, which attitude aids mightily in the healing of both sin and disease.

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