Article August 29, 1914 Issue

While Christian Science stands in no need of publicity...

Algernon Hervey Bathurst

Newcastle (England) Chronicle

While Christian Science stands in no need of publicity from me, it is a little difficult not to say something about it when I am deliberately asked to reply to specific objections to the teaching. I must, however, differ from the reverend gentleman when he says that I am "incapable of seeing the difference between mere statements and proofs or facts." The key-note of Christian Science practice is that statement of James, "Faith, if it hath not works, is dead;" for if Christian Science were merely a theory, it would have ceased to exist long ago, instead of growing steadily till it has already encircled the globe. This great growth is certainly not due to the inability of Christian Scientists to discern the difference between statements and proofs. On the contrary, it is due to the fact that those who understand the teaching set forth by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," are able to demonstrate it by healing themselves and others. Of course any one is free to doubt or "suspect many of the fruits," but that will not alter the facts, and the individual who has been healed, and that very frequently after having tried every known form of materia medica without avail, remains unmoved in his conviction of what has healed him, and is unspeakably grateful for the better understanding of God and man which has come to him through the healing.

I most heartily agree with the statement that "God always works by and through His laws ... and never goes against them." Unfortunately, however, for those who believe that evil is part of good, or that good and evil are in conflict, the law of God can never be understood so long as it is believed that He permits or even includes a knowledge of disease or sin. Again, if only those reason correctly who reason from the basis of the reliability of the testimony of the physical senses, the only conclusion to be drawn is, that the Founder of Christianity himself was at fault, and this the critic would scarcely wish even to imply. Any one of what are termed the miracles of the Master could be quoted as an instance, but it is because Jesus knew that God was not in or associated with matter that he was able to heal the sick, reform the sinner, and do many other great works, all of which were contrary to the so-called laws generally accepted by the authorities of the day.

Jesus fulfilled the law of God, not by accepting the evidence of the physical senses, but by refusing to submit to them. That is exactly what Christian Science teaches today, and it is because the teaching of Christian Science is synonymous with the teaching of Christ Jesus that the healing work is being so successfully accomplished in every quarter of the globe. Any number of denunciations of the healing of disease by Christian Science treatment, as not being in accordance with the teaching of Jesus, will avail nothing. The growth of Christian Science is not exactly due to the absence of criticism, and a little more criticism will not hinder the growth of Christian Science now, any more than it has done in the past, for the same reason that the criticism and persecution of Christ Jesus and his disciples never stifled the growth of Christianity. As regards the attempt to prove that "sin is not sin, or suffering is not suffering," no Christian Scientist ever endeavors to do so; but in so far as he understands the teaching contained in the text-book, Science and Health, and in the Bible, he is able to prove that man is not the slave of sin, and that suffering can be overcome and prevented just as well today as it was two thousand years ago.

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