Article July 12, 1913 Issue

In a recent article on Easter in the Presbyterian Messenger,...

David Anderson—Box Hill, Australia.

The Reporter

In a recent article on Easter in the Presbyterian Messenger, Christian Science is bracketed with theosophy, new thought, etc., and is indicated as one of the sources to which, according to the writer of the article, mistaken people of all grades of life and learning, dissatisfied with previous experiences and groping after higher things, are being driven, and presumably for that rest and spiritual refreshing which they have failed to find in theory, creed, and dogma. May I venture again to appeal to your impartiality for space in your "Open Column" for comment to which the Messenger refuses publicity; and I would desire also to state that there is very much in the article referred to with which Christian Scientists are fully and most heartily in accord. Especially can they affirm that their victories are due to the living Christ, and that their faith is verified in their personal experience, thus reversing the sequence of one of the sentences quoted by the Messenger writer, — the Christian Scientist, having discovered through his religion the truth of immortal life, finds that he is of necessity impelled to practise the truth as the basis of immortality. Christ, Truth, has opened wide to him the prison door of mortality. "It is the living Christ, the practical Truth, which makes Jesus 'the resurrection and the life' to all who follow him in deed" (Science and Health, p. 31).

While Christian Science is new to the thought of the present age, it is not to be confounded with any semimetaphysical system of new thought which, resting on belief in a material basis, fails to recognize the omnipotence of an infinite God, and so leaves the grand point of Christian Science untouched. From theosophy and spiritualism Christian Science is clearly differentiated in Mrs. Eddy's writings, a full chapter being given by her to Christian Science versus Spiritualism in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." From the day when she stood a solitary Christian Scientist in a world given up to a belief of life, power, and intelligence in matter, and suffering the direful results of such belief, critics have not been slow to speak and write as authoritatively of that Christian Science which they have taken no adequate pains to investigate. Most of them, indeed, have been content to accept as verified fact the similarly formed opinion of others.

The phenomenal progress of Christian Science, from that pioneer time to the present, is only explicable on the hypothesis that it is meeting the need of mankind for something more satisfying than they have been able to find elsewhere. It has attracted, and is ever attracting, churchgoers of every commonly classified religious denomination, very many of whom were active workers in their former church organizations; and it has likewise drawn to its fold atheists, infidels, agnostics, theosophists, spiritualists, and representatives of the religiously spineless type who "do not bother about these things," and who consequently gave little previous heed to Christ and Christianity. That the spiritual necessities of all of them are now being fully met is evidenced by personal testimonies every Wednesday evening in thousands of meeting places all over the civilized world. Some no doubt equally sincere religionists, who may not, however, have felt the same spiritual lack and experienced similarly satisfactory supply, may think they are all a mistaken crowd, but that is hardly likely; and, after all, the proof of quality, so far as our food is concerned, is found in the eating, and not the worst judges of spiritual pabulum are those who are daily proving its nourishing and sustaining qualities.

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