Article April 26, 1913 Issue

FROM OUR EXCHANGES

with contributions from Reynold E. Blight, Canon Bannister

[The Rev. Reynold E. Blight as reported in Los Angeles (Cal.) Journal.]

Christian Science is the most remarkable and significant religious movement the world has known since the birth of Christianity. Within twenty years it has compassed the globe, established thousands of local organizations, accumulated property to the value of millions of dollars, created a world-wide constituency, profoundly influenced the thought of the age, healed tens of thousands of sick, and astounded the world by its success. This success is all the more amazing when we remember that every other church is complaining of decreasing membership and diminishing income, and the leaders of all denominations are bewailing the decline of religion.

Like every religious movement of history, Christian Science had to endure its baptism of fire, and for decades it suffered the bitterest persecution and the severest attacks. Its enemies, religious, social, and medical, fought it with malignant hatred, and used every weapon of misrepresentation, abuse, and ridicule in their efforts to destroy it; but it quickly triumphed over its foes, and today is perhaps the most popular of all churches. The reasons for this phenomenal success are not far to seek. Christian Science comes to a densely materialistic age with a message of splendid idealism and spirituality. Denying the reality of matter, it affirms the reality of Mind, of Spirit, of God. It calls upon the nations, drunk with material prosperity and crazed in the delirium of sensual pleasure, to forsake their follies and learn to know God. A world mesmerized by sense hears the command to awake from its hypnotism and come to self-realization. The multitudes enslaved to sin, error, and sickness, hear the voice of the deliverer bidding them leave the fleshpots of Egypt and take their pilgrimage to a promised land of virtue, freedom, truth, and radiant health.

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