Article June 14, 1913 Issue

I have read Phillip Hall's last letter to you without,...

Frederick Dixon—Bedford, England.

Bedfort Daily Circular

I have read Phillip Hall's last letter to you without, to be quite candid, finding in it anything beyond a whirl of texts, the value of which in argument a great church paper not very long ago dismissed as futile. One thing, however, stands out in it, with all the emphasis of the Matterhorn flung up against the blue Swiss sky, and that is the fact that this critic wants Christianity judged by what men say, whereas Christian Science wants it judged by what they say and do. He is desperately anxious to prove that the command to heal the sick was never intended to be taken seriously, in spite of the fact that Christ Jesus and the disciples not only persistently preached the gospel but healed the sick, and that the former declared that he was "the way." He wants to water away the statement that "faith without works is dead" to some purely ethical meaning, about which men may dispute ad infinitum.

It is precisely this attitude of certain religious sects which is largely responsible for filling the Christian Science churches. Christian Scientists demand that Christians should give proof of their faith by their works, and they insist that the works which Jesus did, and to which he alluded, are the works which he claimed as evidence of the fact that he was the Christ. They do not disguise from themselves that it is very much easier to preach the gospel than to heal the sick, unless the gospel preached does heal the sick. It is this largely which has made Christian Science a living force in the world today. The critic may go on writing letters to the papers, criticizing Christian Scientists and the Christian Science movement as fiercely as ever he likes, but he will never stop the progress of the movement one hair's breadth, so long as the movement continues to accept the commands of the Founder of the Christian religion in their obvious meaning, and so to preach the gospel and to heal the sick.

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