Article December 11, 1915 Issue

In a recent editorial Christian Science is spoken of in such...

Ralph W. Everett

Tulsa (Okla.) World

In a recent editorial Christian Science is spoken of in such a way as to lead one to believe that to practise Christian Science is to use will-power. Mrs. Eddy's teaching on this subject, as found in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 490), is as follows: "Will-power is but a product of belief, and this belief commits depredations on harmony. Human will is an animal propensity, not a faculty of Soul. Hence it cannot govern man aright. Christian Science reveals Truth and Love as the motive-powers of man. Will—blind, stubborn, and headlong—cooperates with appetite and passion. From this cooperation arises its evil. From this also comes its powerlessness, since all power belongs to God, good." Man is the image and likeness of God; therefore he must express the qualities of his creator. "God is a Spirit," consequently His image and likeness must express spiritual not material qualities.

Instead, then, of lulling into a self-satisfied condition, Christian Science arouses its students to a more active realization of the necessity of overcoming mortal mind, as Mrs. Eddy has termed it, or the carnal mind to which Paul referred when he said, "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." The study of Christian Science brings one to the realization of the possibility and the desire to reach that state of perfection here and now which men have hoped for in a future world salvation. This can be reached only by putting off the old man, which is purely the product of human will, and putting on the new, in having the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus."

It is mortal mind, or human will, that has lulled men into a state of seeming contentment, for the reason that no means of escape from its results was known. Christian Science presents the way of escape from these conditions, and awakens man to his real spiritual being, thus showing him that he cannot be content with less than the highest expression of right activity, — the activity of the divine Mind.

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In a recent editorial Christian Science is spoken of in such...

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