Article September 5, 1914 Issue

May I trespass again on your space in the endeavor to...

Algernon Hervey Bathurst

Weymouth (England) Telegram

May I trespass again on your space in the endeavor to show a recent critic that Christian Scientists are not vitally concerned with matter and what is generally known as the material creation. The situation might, I think, be best summed up by quoting those magnificent words of the Founder of Christianity, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed then unto babes." Again, Paul, writing to the Corinthians, said, speaking of the reality of Spirit, and therefore the unreality of matter, "The things which are not seen are eternal." I quite agree with this critic that "all things are good," if by that he means that all that is real is good, although I am inclined to think that this can scarcely be the interpretation he would have put upon the sentence, since he is so determined to uphold matter as something real and therefore eternal.

It is evident to every student of the Scripture that Christ Jesus and his disciples never overcame a single difficulty, whether it was a case of healing the sick, feeding the multitude, or stilling the tempest, by giving reality to matter or the so-called laws of the carnal or mortal mind, which the apostle says so distinctly is "enmity against God." The whole trouble arises through the illogical and therefore false reasoning with which the world has endeavored to be contented during so many centuries. Nothing was more simple than the teaching of Jesus, nothing was more logical; and nothing is more simple or logical, and therefore practical, than the teaching of Christian Science. Knowing the truth which alone can free mankind from the bondage of evil, Jesus was able to prove the truth of the statement that he had come to fulfil the law of God. Christian Science is the reiteration of that same teaching, and because it is so, the signs do follow.

If, however, a Christian Scientist, or anybody else, were to endeavor to practise the teaching of the Master on the basis of the reality of matter, he would not proceed far. The belief in the power or reality of both good and evil is typified in the Scripture by the "house divided against itself, which Jesus declared must inevitably fall. Reasoning from cause to effect, therefore, we find one creator, one "great First Cause," which the world has generally agreed to call God, Spirit, infinite, omnipresent, and omnipotent. If there is one cause, the effect or creation of that cause must be as perfect as the cause itself. Now, it does not matter how real evil apears to be, it does not matter how serious a physical trouble seems to be, the difficulty can be overcome today just as easily as two thousand years ago, if the teaching of the Master is properly understood and applied.

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