Article January 18, 1913 Issue

In a recent issue there appeared an article which announced...

Ezra W. Palmer

Denver (Col.) News

In a recent issue there appeared an article which announced a series of public lectures by a gentleman who was formerly a Christian Science practitioner. It was stated in this article that the reason this individual left the Christian Science movement was because "he decided that the followers of this faith placed a limit on human strength by confining their attention to the mental." If this is the reason the gentleman left the Christian Science organization, he left because of a misconception. If by the term "mental" is meant human mentality or the human mind, it can be stated that Christian Scientists do not rely upon it at all as a source of strength or inspiration. Christian Scientists know that all action, movement, and power is vested in the divine Mind, and that in so far as they understand this divine Mind they gain inspiration and divine strength.

Neither do Christian Scientists rely on human strength, as this article infers. They know that God is omnipotent and that "in him we live, and move, and have our being," as the apostle Paul states; and this is the source to which all Christian Scientists look for their strength. Since God is infinite in power and wisdom, it is difficult to see how Christian Scientists limit themselves when relying wholly upon Him, as this critic declares.

The article further states that this critic "was a Christian Science practitioner for seven years and met with tremendous financial success." Genuine Christian Scientists do not enter upon the work of healing humanity from its diseases and saving it from its sins because of any financial reward that might thereby accrue from their labors. The motive actuating a Christian Science practitioner must be love for God and man as a basis of his labor, and any element of avarice or greed would defeat his healing work and nullify it. Any person who enters upon the work of a Christian Science practitioner with the motive of making "a tremendous financial success" of it has mistaken his calling, and will inevitably fail in his work because his motive is selfish, and the sooner he retires from it the better for mankind.

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