Article December 13, 1913 Issue

It is reported that "Miss Millar, the Australian evangelist,...

H. M. Mason

Nashville (Tenn.) Banner

It is reported that "Miss Millar, the Australian evangelist, denounced in specific terms the 'fallacies' of Christian Science," and that "Miss Millar has challenged 'false religions' and 'false doctrines,' chief among which she places Christian Science." If Miss Millar is entitled to be called an evangelist, her mission in Nashville, and wherever she may speak, is comprehensively set forth in Webster's definition of evangelist, the principal clause of which is, "A bringer of the glad tidings of Christ and his doctrines." The Biblically acknowledged exemplary evangelist James said: "Speak not evil one of another, brethren." "For in many things we offend all. If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body." Judging, criticizing, and denouncing a religion is an action strictly in violation of evangelical ethics.

All Christian religions are necessarily represented by the Young Women's Christian Association. If I were to attend an occasion under the auspices of this association with the understanding that the Christian Science religion was to be expounded, and the speaker devoted his time to denouncing another religion, I would naturally feel that I had been imposed upon. For several years I was a business man, and learned through experience that a man with a good business, making a success, has neither time nor inclination to advertise another's business through any kind of spirit or means, denunciatory or otherwise. I believe that rule is a good and safe one to follow, and would serve as a reliable indicator in connection with religions and professions of all kinds. Any one who speaks disparagingly of a religion making the history throughout the world that Christian Science is presenting, is palpably "intruding into those things which he hath not seen."

Miss Millar said: "Recently I said to a woman in New York city, 'Do you know there are sixty thousand girls living in one section of the city in the blackest and vilest of degradation?' The woman replied simply, 'It does not exist in reality.' " I have no means of knowing that this woman to whom Miss Millar refers is a Christian Scientist, or that her thought in regard to the unreality of evil was not further elucidated during this interview. I can say, however, that the reliable witnesses to the fact that Christian Science is liberating people from evil conditions—degradation of all kinds—are numerous everywhere, and present conclusive evidence of the merits of this teaching. The influence from which these results come forth, emanates from the reasoning that if "all things were made by him [God]; and without him was not any thing made that was made," and that "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, ... is not of the Father," and "passeth away," then, in the scientific sense, there is no reality in evil. Proceeding in this way by no means tends to make a benefactor unmindful of another's needs, or in any way uncharitable. No Christian Scientist pretends to prove evil conditions to be unreal except through an educational process somewhat after the manner in which a musician demonstrates all music to be based upon a principle, which absolutely proves the unreality of all discord.

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It is reported that "Miss Millar, the Australian evangelist,...

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