Article February 7, 1914 Issue

The writer of a communication published in your issue of...

George A. Law—Meriden, Conn.

The Morning Record

The writer of a communication published in your issue of Dec. 18 may be assured that the quotation from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" of detached sentences and statements removed from their context, is no new or original method of attempting to show inconsistencies in Mrs. Eddy's writings and the teachings of Christian Science; on the contrary, the practise has been in vogue since the publication of the Christian Science text-book, though for some time past it has to a large extent been discarded.

Those who make this class of criticism, disregard the fact that, in order to make her premise that the spiritual is the real and the material is the unreal better understood, it was necessary to call attention to the claims of the material world, so called. Appreciating this, one is able at all times to discern from Mrs. Eddy's statements whether reference is being made to the spiritual or the material. Likewise, in studying the Bible, the view-point of the writer, and hence a correct interpretation of Scripture, is obtained by determining whether the material or the spiritual is being referred to. In Science and Health we read that "the universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be understood;" also, "Everything in God's universe expresses Him" (pp. 124, 331). In each of these quotations the spiritual world is referred to. Speaking of Jesus, Mrs. Eddy says, "The world acknowledged not his righteousness;" and, "The world feels the alterative effect of truth through every pore" (pp. 54, 224). In these instances the world of material sense is under consideration.

Mrs. Eddy by no means stands alone in the idea of the non-existence of matter. Such an authority as Professor Ostwald of Leipsic University said: "Matter is a thing of thought, which we have constructed for ourselves, rather imperfectly to represent what is permanent in the change of phenomena." Grant Allen said that "the universe as known to us consists wholly of mind, and matter is a doubtful and uncertain inference of the human intelligence." Hume, Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer have also denied the reality of matter and asserted that a knowledge of reality can be obtained only through reflection and thought, not in sensation and feelings. It will be seen that all this is in accord with the teaching of Christian Science; that what appears to our immature, imperfect sense of things is but temporal, transitory, unsubstantial, and must give place to the permanent, substantial, spiritual, and real.

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