Editorial October 9, 1915 Issue

Bases of Unity

John B. Willis

The lack of unity of belief and of efficient cooperation among professed followers of Christ Jesus which has characterized Christian history in all the long years, is equally unfortunate, unbecoming, and unnecessary. That its occasions are all relatively unimportant is now universally conceded, and though it still abides, it is rebuked by the prayers and the common sense of the great body of Christian people. As one thinks of it, how amazing it seems that with the dawn of the modern scientific spirit Christian teachers and preachers should not have been reminded of the Master's conformity to its rule and order and his commendation of it. This spirit always addresses itself to the work of convincingly proving the truth or error of every proposition, and had it been duly honored, the church would long since have been impelled to undertake the establishment of Christian faith on that scientific basis which would manifestly effect the same at-one-ment among religionists that obtains among chemists and mathematicians.

The recognition of this one right way to remove all separating differences of belief, together with the successful endeavor to demonstrate it which the Christian Science movement has inaugurated, is its most distinctive feature. Mrs. Eddy splendidly epitomized all her teaching respecting this matter when she wrote: "There is but one way to heaven, harmony, and Christ in divine Science shows us this way. It is to know no other reality—to have no other consciousness of life—than good, God and His reflection, and to rise superior to the so-called pain and pleasure of the senses" (Science and Health, p. 242). This expresses the scientific attitude toward God and toward every possible circumstance and event of human experience. It supplies the formula for the solution of all problems, the rule for all right living, and it surely voices that wisdom whose price is above rubies.

This is the totality of Christian Science teaching and requirement: that we have right thought of being, of God and His universe, including man, and that this right thought shall be established and maintained by the daily demonstration of its authority over sickness and sin. If this were honestly undertaken by Christian believers, it would speedily end every creedal conflict. As one reads the story of the Master's life and works, it is impossible to escape the conviction that the spiritual law he enforced, the truths he taught, were to be subject to this test of demonstration and thus to constitute a provable science. The healing work he instituted was always to supply a satisfying basis of unity respective the essentials of faith, and the absence of these convincing proofs of the verity of accepted interpretations fully explains the dissensions which have marred the annals of the Christian church.

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