Article April 4, 1914 Issue

Our critic laments that Christian Science teaches something...

R. Stanhope Easterday—Shelbyville, Ind.

Morning News

Our critic laments that Christian Science teaches something different from his preconceived notion about sin and sinners. He has evidently overlooked the sweeping declaration of John in his first epistle, where we read, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; ... he cannot sin, because he is born of God." In this same connection, however, we read also, "He that committeth sin is of the devil." But our Lord designated this same "devil," or "Satan," to be, in the last analysis, nothing but "a liar, and the father of it," and throughout the Bible sin is characterized as deceptive in its origin and nature. When, therefore, Jesus said that the afflicted woman was bound by Satan, he signified that her physical condition was the direct result of a false concept of life and its legitimate activities; and very logically, when he healed such a one, he substituted the true concept of God's perfect, harmonious, and purely spiritual creation, as chronicled in the first chapter of Genesis, for the woman's false or deceived sense.

It is perfectly clear, moreover, in such light of Scriptural interpretation, how this same master Metaphysician could heal a palsied hand by forgiving the man's sins. In other words, Christian Science deduces that if by sin came death, by sin also must come the preliminaries of death known in human experience as diseases, and as logically concludes that a correction of the sinful or false sense of all things, characterized as "the works of the devil," will alone heal the sick and effectually reform the sinner. John declares with due significance in this connection, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." Nothing actually existent or emanating from God could ever be destroyed, hence the deduction in Christian Science that all phases of evil are, when reduced to the last analysis, unreal.

A reasonable study on the part of your readers of the real teachings of Christian Science will result in the comforting unfoldment of many such sublime truths from the pages of Holy Writ, and will make clear to them why the Christian Scientists became such, continue to be such, and are apparently so healthy, happy, and contented, having no time to denounce or criticize others while in the pursuit of their distinctly constructive sense of religion.

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