Article March 6, 1915 Issue

The clerical critic who is quoted in a recent issue as disapproving...

Frank Bell—Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

The Times-Leader

The clerical critic who is quoted in a recent issue as disapproving of Christian Science, because in his opinion its appeal is only to the "educated class," might well be recommended to a fellow clergyman who in a neighboring Pennsylvania city a few weeks ago declared that persons of education could not be attracted to Christian Science. When theories of experts thus disagree, the layman is reduced to the necessity of arriving at his independent opinion upon a basis of mere fact. The fact is that both critics are wrong, since the adherents of Christian Science include representative proportions of the highly educated and those who have had little or no schooling.

It is somewhat difficult to understand why Christian Scientists should be denounced for not carrying their religion into the slums, if their religion is such a reprehensible thing as our friend professes to believe. If church-members need to be warned against Christian Science, why this apparent disregard for the fate of the slums? Here again the fact is helpful in arriving at a conclusion, and the fact is that no denomination can compare with the Christian Science church in the proportion of adherents who profess to have been rescued through its ministrations from the habits, practices, and conditions of the slums.

We do not know how the critic acquired the impression indicated in the charge that "Christian Science denies the fact of sin and pooh-poohs confession," but we do know that the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," on page 448, contains this statement, which is typical of many others in the same volume: "Christian Science rises above the evidence of the corporeal senses;but if you have not risen above sin yourself, do not congratulate yourself upon your blindness to evil or upon the good you know and do not. A dishonest position is far from Christianly scientific. 'He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.'"

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