Article June 6, 1914 Issue

In a recent article there is a reference to the views of a...

Frederick Dixon—Seacombe, England

Wallasey and Wirral Chronicle

In a recent article there is a reference to the views of a gentleman whose services are described as being in great demand to expose modern counterfeits of Christianity, such as spiritism and Christian Science. In these circumstances, I am sure you will permit me to point out that while he may not approve of Christian Science, this does not prove it to be a counterfeit of Christianity. It is an unfortunate fact that the Christian sects for centuries have disapproved of one another so thoroughly that they have persecuted and murdered one another by way of attaining conformity with their own particular views. Christian Science has learned the lesson of this through Mrs. Eddy's wisdom. It never goes out of its way to abuse its neighbors for doing the best they know to accomplish the best they can. It devotes itself, on the contrary, to the effort to demonstrate its own teaching so thoroughly that those who come to it may find in it a practical religion. If this critic can give those who come to him a more practical religion, and one which will bring them a greater understanding of God, he will have no occasion to attack the teaching of anybody else.

It is the very fact that Christian Scientists are devoting their whole energies to the demonstration of the truth of Christian Science, rather than to criticism of somebody else, that is spreading this teaching in an ever-growing ratio entirely around the world. The demand of the Founder of the Christian religion was that men should preach the gospel and heal the sick. Bitter sectarianism has changed this into something perilously near the Mohammedan attitude of presenting the Koran in one hand and the sword in the other. In medieval days, men were denounced and burned if they dissented from the teaching of Rome. In later days, they lost their civic rights, and were frequently in danger of their lives, if they dissented from the Church of England. Later still, if they dissented from dissent, they were in danger of the prison cell and the branding-iron. Today, they are preached against and denounced by gentlemen who frequently seem to imagine that the violence of their invective is a proof of the strength of their Christianity.

I have never before heard of this critic, therefore I am not thinking of his methods, but I am pointing out that if he will add the healing of sickness to the overcoming of sin, he will approach nearer the demands of the gospel than by the simple requirement of a protestation of faith. Jesus of Nazareth knew the exact value of protestations, and therefore, presumably, he required that those who believed on him should do the works he did. In the exact proportion in which these works are done, a believer obviously can alone claim to be regarded as a Christian. That is the test, not of the Christian Science movement, but of the Bible itself, on which the Christian Science movement is founded. At the same time, it would be a mistake to imagine for a moment that the healing of disease is the ultimate aim of Mrs. Eddy's teaching. The healing of disease, she has insisted over and over again, is the very alphabet of Christian Science practice. "Now, as then," she writes, on page 150 of Science and Health, "signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world."

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