Article November 20, 1915 Issue

In a statement referring to Christian Science a speaker is...

Campbell MacCulloch

Brooklyn (N. Y.) Times

In a statement referring to Christian Science a speaker is reported as saying, "Christian Science, for all the good that it achieves, also does mischief by discounting intellectual work," and much more in the same erroneous strain. The statement is wide of the mark, for on page 128 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says : "Business men and cultured scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity. ... A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity."

In the Preface to the same volume, in the second paragraph, Mrs. Eddy observes, "The time for thinkers has come." Still again on page 195 is the statement: "Whatever furnishes the semblance of an idea governed by its Principle, furnishes food for thought. Through astronomy, natural history, chemistry, music, mathematics, thought passes naturally from effect back to cause. Academics of the right sort are requisite. Observation, invention, study, and original thought are expansive and should promote the growth of mortal mind out of itself."

Here are two or three excerpts taken at random from a great many other similar passages to be found in this textbook; and these discount with authoritative statement the loose generalizations of the critic, who quite evidently speaks with a "zeal . . . not according to knowledge." Further, despite the critic's added assertion that Christian Science denies the existence of evils, permit me to state that so far as a recognition that evils are a part of and enter into human experience is concerned, Christian Science does nothing of the kind, but proceeds to cope with such manifestations and destroy them in the most effective manner.

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