Article June 7, 1913 Issue

A recent reference in the Chronicle to Mrs. Eddy, the...

David Anderson

The Yarrawonga (Australia) Chronicle

A recent reference in the Chronicle to Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in association with the notice of a "new mysticism," or mode of treatment of disease by meditation and silence, may have conveyed to some readers the erroneous impression that she was a theosophist, and that the Christian Science religion is akin to theosophy, or that its metaphysical healing has something in common with the mysticism then under review. Mrs. Eddy never was a theosophist, and there is no analogy between theosophy and the demonstrable truths of Christian Science.

Christian Science rests on the basic statement of the infinitude of omnipotent God, "the same yesterday, and today, and forever," and its healing is effected through the realization of the potency and unceasing activity of the divine Mind, operating through law as constant and unchanging as its author is unchangeable. Christian Science finds no room for exercise of the human will, but shows how the carnal mentality can be subordinated to the Mind which was in Christ Jesus. It makes no attempt to heal through willpower or mental suggestion, and consequently seeks no aids of sense concentration or of meditation on, or repetition of, resonant words. Its teachings and practise are entirely antithetic to all such aids. The silence which Christian Science inculcates is the "silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience" which "enable us to follow Jesus' example" (Science and Health, p. 4); and to illustrate that direction of the Master preparatory to prayer, "Enter into thy closet, and ... shut thy door," Mrs. Eddy writes: "We must close the lips and silence the material senses. In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God's allness" (Science and Health, p. 15).

The healing of Christian Science is now admitted by many opponents who erstwhile had nothing for it, root and branch, but solemn and sulphurous condemnation. By and by they will acknowledge the last of the three stages through which Agassiz says every great scientific truth must pass, and will declare they have always believed it. It should not, however, be forgotten that "the mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to test the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world" (Science and Health, p. 150).

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