Article March 22, 1913 Issue

PRINCIPLE VERSUS CHANCE

REGINALD JAMES CHANDLER.

There are a multitude of people unacquainted with the teachings of Christian Science whose daily experiences seem to be a series of uncertain, haphazard events over which they can exercise little or no control. Life to them seems quite inexplicable. All their searchings among material phenomena have failed to reveal the great First Cause or Principle of the universe, who, in the words of Scripture, "doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth." The belief that man is material, possessing a mind of his own, apart from God, the one Mind, and that there are millions of conflicting minds, each having different beliefs, tastes, fears, and hopes, peering apprehensively in all directions, ready to conjure up sickness or catastrophe from the dark abyss of fear,—this belief regards its delusions as the facts of existence.

Another large body of people believe that there is a personal God in some remote place who occasionally interferes in human affairs, sending sickness and sorrow to discipline His children, and that they have to pass through the change called death in order to enter a far-off heaven where all their sufferings will be at an end. Yet others believe themselves entirely at the mercy of chance, helpless victims of the conflicting forces of a material universe, buffeted hither and thither by every wind of adversity.

Moses and the prophets understood and proved man's God-given dominion over these false beliefs, but it was not until the advent of Jesus that the Christ, the perfect idea of God, was fully revealed to human consciousness. The age was so blinded, however, by materialism, and the appearance of the "Messiah" or Christ was so antipodal to the Jews' preconceived opinions and expectations of his coming, that it was utterly rejected save by the few who became Jesus' followers.

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