Article May 15, 1915 Issue

Pastor—was quite right in assuming, when composing...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

Kansas City (Mo.) Post

Pastor—was quite right in assuming, when composing the discourse which was published recently, that Christian Scientists are not averse to truthful criticisms. It should be noted, however, that a criticism may be sincere but not intelligent, and honest but not truthful.

The clergyman's main criticism of Christian Science centered about the statement that Mrs. Eddy "settled all doctrinal differences with the dictum that there is no evil, no sin, no death; that what have been so called are merely errors of the mind." In short, he tried to make Christian Science absurd by reducing it to a set denials. It would be as fair as this to say that the Christian teaching of man's origin rests on the negation of human fatherhood. Christ Jesus did say, "Call no man your father upon the earth;" but if these words alone were put forth as his teaching on the subject to which they relate, he would be misrepresented. The denial which they expressed was based on the affirmative truth, "For one is your Father, which is in heaven;" and the denial without the affirmation would not be understood. So also a criticism of Mrs. Eddy for denying the absolute reality of evil, without reference to the basis of her denial, is unfair and misleading.

In what manner, then, did Mrs. Eddy deal with the mystery of evil? She consistently accepted the monotheism of the Bible. "You must begin," she has written on page 275 of Science and Health, "by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is." A more complete statement of her reasoning, yet short enough to be quoted here, is the following from page 472 of the same book: "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise." It may be added that the mystery of evil is most clearly dispelled when some item of it is destroyed, and cast out of one's experience, by the spiritual understanding which Christian Science confers.

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