Article September 7, 1912 Issue

It is a curious fact that a well-known clergyman, in...

Frederick Dixon—Newcastly, England.

Newcastly Daily Chronicle

It is a curious fact that a well-known clergyman, in preaching a sermon on the text, "What is truth?" delivered for the purpose of drawing together the bonds of Christian unity, should have gone out of his way to attack Christian Science. Exactly how the bonds of Christian unity are to be drawn closer together by denouncing as error the opinions of those from whom you differ, it would be difficult to say. The ordinary man would be justified in remarking that, if the various Christian sects devoted a little less time to criticizing their neighbors, and a little more to practising the truth they preach, Christian unity would be nearer than it appears to be today.

It is a rule of the Christian Science movement never to attack any other sect. This critic will not be able to give a single instance in which this has been departed from. Perhaps one of the causes which has led, and is leading, to the enormous growth of Christian Science is the fact that Christian Scientists do whole-heartedly devote their time to demonstrating the truth they preach, without any fear that the omnipotence of divine Principle will be affected by the teaching of anything that is not true. Their own religion they have founded unhesitatingly on the Bible, and they remember the words of Gamaliel: "If this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to naught: but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it."

Next, may I point out that Jesus of Nazareth, speaking of truth, summed up his teaching in the famous phrase, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." There was no limitation to the freedom he spoke of, so that it is perfectly obvious the freedom brought by an understanding of truth must be freedom from everything which is unlike truth. It is precisely because of this that Christian Science teaches that one of the forms which the practise of the Christian religion must take is the destruction of disease, and it is a curious commentary on this that a clergyman should have attacked Christian Science as an error which was doing a lot of harm, when Christian Science merely asks people to accept the obvious, plain meaning of the Bible, and to recognize that Christ Jesus summed up the work of the Christian religion as preaching the gospel and healing the sick.

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