Editorial March 20, 1915 Issue

"Strait is the gate"

Archibald McLellan

If humanity's concept of God and man's relation to Him, during the ages preceding the advent of Jesus, had been correct, and the teachings of our Master had been in accord therewith, he would not have met with opposition, nor would he have been persecuted and crucified. It was because these teachings differed from those which were generally accepted at the time Jesus commenced his ministry, that the scribes and the Pharisees, the high priests and the rulers of the synagogues were disturbed, and plotted what they intended to be his downfall and the suppression of his work. Again, with the same misdirected zeal that obsessed Saul of Tarsus, intrenched scholasticism has in this generation persistently and cruelly misjudged, misrepresented, and persecuted Christian Science and its Discoverer and Founder. Ignoring or rejecting, as did those old-time zealots, the works of healing from sin and sickness by which Christian Science long since justified its claim as the reinstatement of primitive Christianity, these learned critics have unwittingly placed themselves in the category of those of whom it was written, "He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them."

Mrs. Eddy's easiest course, from the point of view of the opportunist, would have been to modify her presentation of Christian Science to meet the settled views of those who might be expected to oppose this new gospel. That this temptation presented itself, and that she met and mastered it, as shown in her own words: "The author has not compromised conscience to suit the general drift of thought, but has bluntly and honestly given the text of Truth" (Science and Health, Pref., p. x). What is equally to the point, she justified her faith with works which could not be gainsaid. Standing alone with Truth, she gave her message without fear or favor, and left the results with God.

Every Christian Scientist is under the temptation to compromise with prejudices; in other words, to sugar-coat his presentation of Christian Science so as to make it acceptable to his friends; but this is a temptation which must be withstood if mankind is fully to benefit by Mrs. Eddy's work. There is no other way to the attainment of an understanding of this teaching than by individual study and demonstration. Christian Science is an exact science, and as such it must be stated in terms of exactness; otherwise is to dilute or adulterate it. Those who nominally would become Christian Scientists if permitted to alter or dilute its doctrines, could be of no value to the value to the cause for which our Leader labored so unselfishly. They would add nothing but numbers to the Christian Science organization, and numbers at the expense of clarity of understanding would be a detriment rather than an advantage. Mrs. Eddy has said, "Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized" (Science and Health, p. 167), and in the spirit of this saying we should see that any compromise with matter or with a material concept of God and man would retard the salvation of mankind through Christian Science.

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