Article November 1, 1913 Issue

It is impossible to go about the world, listening to what is...

Frederick Dixon—Ashford, Kent, England

Kentish Express

It is impossible to go about the world, listening to what is being said and reading what is being written about Christian Science, without becoming aware that a vast amount of criticism and prejudice is being aroused by the perpetual reiteration of the statement that its teaching is opposed to what is termed historic Christianity. Now historic Christianity is just one of these phrases which is very much simpler to make use of than to define; and the various sects which make use of it so volubly against Christianity, Science are usually in the position in which Bacon declares Pilate was when he put his momentous question, "What is truth?" that is, too heedless to stop to consider the consequences of his own words; for historic Christianity, if it has any meaning at all, is the record of the struggles, quarrels, and differences of the various sects during the past nineteen hundred years. It may be as well to make this perfectly clear.

There was a time, centuries before Maupertuis, when it was a Christian dogma, and a dogma it was exceedingly dangerous to deny, that the world was flat. Augustine of Hippo had explained that this was so, that the earth was a vast plain surrounded by mountains, from which the heavens were stretched like a drum-skin. This was in order to get over the difficulty of the people at the antipodes at the second coming; for it was demanded, if the earth was spherical, how, when the last trump sounded and Jesus descended out of the clouds, were the people on the other side of the world to see him? Again, it was once insisted that the earth was the center of the planetary system. Copernicus' great book containing the refutation of this was placed upon the Index, and Galileo was summoned before the holy office for maintaining it. All this was necessitated by the acceptance of the dogma that the earth was created by God for the peculiar benefit of the Adamic race, as a dwelling-place, that is, for human man, supposedly made in His image and likeness, and irreverently described by Falstaff as a fantastical split radish. Truly, as Goethe says, "man never knows how anthropomorphic he is."

The simple fact is, that the Christianity of Europe has been changing century after century, sometimes even decade after decade. The Christianity of the fourth century, Mr. Froude says, in effect, was not the Christianity of the fifth century, any more than the Christianity of the fifth century was the Christianity of the centuries succeeding it; medieval Christianity died at the Reformation, and was reborn in Protestantism; and he goes on to ask if the medieval builders who built the cathedral of St. Andrews by the North sea, could meet the Calvinists who shattered it into fragments, or even the Presbyters who tread its aisles today, how much they would understand the one the other. This very briefly is the record of historic Christianity, that is, of Christian dogma as recorded in the histories of the centuries which have elapsed since Constantine. If anybody wishes to maintain that is it a record opposed to all the teaching of Christian Science, he will find that he will be able to rely on the support of every Christian Scientist in making his statement good.

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