Article September 5, 1914 Issue

Our critic assumes that opposition to Christian Science "is...

Charles E. Jarvis

Pasadena (Cal.) News

Our critic assumes that opposition to Christian Science "is aroused by its emphasis on disease and its use of sickness to draw people to its lectures and meetings." While it is true in many instances that people have turned to Christian Science for physical healing after having exhausted all that "expert skill, perfected through costly years of experiment and study," could offer, it is not alone freedom from disease and sickness that humanity is seeking, but for relief from sorrow, sin, and the emptiness of barren lives as well. Those who have turned to Christian Science in response to the inherent longing for better things, have proved that God is "a very present help in trouble," regardless of the nature of that trouble. To say, then, that "if everybody were well physically, there would be no Christian Science," is about as logical as to argue that if everybody were saved, according to orthodox belief, there would be no Christianity.

While we cannot agree with our critic that Jesus healed the sick only "under protest," it is true that the purpose of physical healing, then as now, was to "teach some spiritual lesson," namely, the operation of God's immutable laws and the application of these laws to the solution of every human problem.

If Christian Science offered nothing beyond the cure of physical ills, it would not differ from the various therapeutic agencies to which mankind has resorted for centuries past. It is, however, a Christian religion,—Christian because its teachings are based literally upon the words and works of Christ Jesus; and scientific because it is full, exact, and demonstrable knowledge of God. That humanity should seek freedom from pain and discord, should not be regarded as unreasonable, nor should not healing of "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease" by spiritual means be deprecated, especially when both conditions prevailed in the time of Jesus, whose test of a man's Christianity was his ability to heal the sick. "He that believth on me," he said, "the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do;" and James tells us that "faith without works is dead."

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