Article October 31, 1914 Issue

The time when religious convictions and beliefs were taken...

Paul Stark Seeley—Pendleton, Ore.

East Oregonian

The time when religious convictions and beliefs were taken second hand from the pulpit and platform is rapidly giving way to an age in which the individual is seeking at first hand for the truth about God. Men no longer sit content with opinions passed to them through channels narrowed by secular prejudice and warped with scholastic bigotry; and to this freedom of individual thought Christian Science owes in considerable measure its remarkable growth in the last twoscore years. Thousands and hundreds of thousands have found in Christian Science not a perversion of Christianity, but a living religion of good deeds. From it they have learned what the orthodoxy of the day has failed to teach them, namely, the daily application of Christ's teachings to humanity's every need, whether that need be for comfort from sorrow, healing of sickness, or forgiveness of sin.

To a world filled with sickness, discord, and despair, Christian Science has brought again the message of "on earth peace, good will toward men." It has thrown the light of understanding on the Scriptures and unlocked for all mankind the treasures of spiritual truths therein contained. Its road has been hard and its advance beset by heavy odds. Persecution by those who have not understood has been bitter, but persecution is giving way to toleration, and toleration to respect and approbation. The message of Christian Science is that of the Messiah, the Christ, Truth, proved by Jesus and the early Christians, and discerned in this age by a great and good woman who endured the opprobrium and ridicule of a hostile world to give what she had seen of spiritual truth to a sin-sick humanity. The truth about Christian Science can be learned by any fair-minded investigator. Its text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is in almost every public library. A correct biography of its Discoverer, Mrs. Eddy, written by Sibyl Wilbur, is likewise available. Christian Science asks of the world but justice and honesty when its teachings are being considered, and for its followers it seeks no other standard than the one established by Jesus, "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

No religion is more completely in accord with the Bible than is Christian Science, and no class of people are more earnest Bible students than are Christian Scientists. Through the truth which it teaches, the world is learning that religion is the science of right living, and that the teachings of the Bible, understood, give to man the key to happiness and health. Man's relationship to God is made clearer through this teaching, and man learns that as he applies the simple truths of right thinking enunciated by Jesus, he can acquire the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." That Christian Scientists are doing this in some degree, their works testify, and show to a doubting world the present possibilities for mankind to demonstrate, as did Jesus, the supremacy of Spirit, God, over the ills of mortality. By so doing they find the present-day fulfilment of the Master's promises, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;" "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

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