Article June 28, 1913 Issue

A writer in a recent issue calls attention to Christian Science...

M. S. Bruen—Dublin, Ireland.

The Express

A writer in a recent issue calls attention to Christian Science, and I think the following may clear up some points with regard to it which trouble him.

Nearly forty years ago a book was published which brought a seemingly new idea before the world, new in the sense that it had been lost sight of for centuries. Christian healing was its central idea, the healing which had ceased to be definitely practised since the third century. Instead of insisting on the power, inevitableness, and all-presence of evil, men were bidden in Christian Science to turn and look for the all-power and presence of God, whom the Bible names Love, Life, Spirit, remembering that their conscious existence must be due to some cause which must be intelligent, Mind. Being aware that every one wants happiness, love, betterment of some sort, this book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, as it was called, brought out the fact that God, good, is the only power and presence, and bade men recognize that fact, and take it for their standpoint of thinking and living,—to magnify good, and not evil. The chapter on Prayer unfolded a sane and higher view of how to pray so as to receive answers, while the chapter on Atonement and Eucharist opened out practical views of the way to "draw near to God," which Jesus lived and taught with the deepest reverence, making the Saviour better known to all.

This book showed that God, being "of purer eyes than to behold evil," cannot possibly have made, or sent, or permitted evil or trouble of any kind; for if God had made evil and misery, they must be eternal, so it would be of no manner of use to try to get rid of them. But God being absolutely perfect Love, Truth, and Life, He could not make the opposites of these, and did not make them; therefore they are only of the nature of an illusion, and temporary. This seemed startling and "too good to be true;" but here and there men and women who were suffering and crying out for relief, began to read the book, and found their illnesses and pains were leaving them. This happened more and more often, till there was quite a stir. "Have the days of miracles come back?" No, they said; Christian healing is not miraculous, but divinely natural, for we are beginning to understand God's law: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me," and the blessing follows: "I will take sickness away from the midst of thee." They had begun to learn the way to be free.

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