Article August 23, 1913 Issue

To take away from Christianity its healing would be entirely...

John W. Harwood

Blackpool (England) Times

To take away from Christianity its healing would be entirely in opposition to our Saviour's command. Take away the records of healing in the gospels, and there would be very little left. Jesus' command was never simply to preach the gospel. When he sent out the seventy disciples, he told them, into whatesoever city they entered, to heal the sick that were therein, and to say unto them, "The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you;" and to the same seventy he said, "Carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor shoes: ... for the laborer is worthy of his hire." In the face of this, the critic's statement that "no Bible healers ever took money for their services" does not seem to hold good. Christian Science is proving itself to be in accordance with the teachings of Jesus, for it is redeeming mankind morally, and, as a result, eliminating disease. People are tired of words without deeds, preaching without practise. St. James said, "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone." Before launching out to attack those who are attempting to follow the Master in all his commands, critics should be quite certain of their own ground.

The critic asks, "Why could not Christian Science keep to America?" It is big enough, intimates our critic. Although America is big, yet this Science, a demonstrable knowledge of Christ, which emanates from the divine Mind, is too big and too good even for America alone to retain. That which reveals the infinitude, omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience of God, good, hence the nothingness, the impotence, of evil, could never be limited in any way in its loving, purifying, healing, and redeeming ministrations; no, not even by such attacks as these.

Our critic disagrees with the teaching of Christian Science respecting its definition of God. If this teaching was not different from so-called orthodox teaching, it would be attended by no better results. Most decidedly Christian Science teaches that God is not a person in any anthropomorphic sense. The definition as given in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy (p. 465) is as follows: "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." Deducing from the allness of God, good, as expressed by these synonyms, the nothingness or unreality of evil (sin, disease, and all the works of the flesh included), our critic again objects. How strange it is that those wholly occupied in the attempt to overcome evil, should cling so tenaciously to the belief in its reality, for if evil were true or real, it would be eternal and could not be destroyed.

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