Article June 26, 1915 Issue

In a recently printed sermon entitled "Christian Science...

Avery Coonley—Danville, Ill.

The Press

In a recently printed sermon entitled "Christian Science: Is It Reasonable?" there are a number of points which need correction. Of all the Christian churches, the Christian Science church alone undertakes to obey all three of the Master's commands,—to teach, to preach, and to heal; and it finds the promises fulfilled, not only in the healing of sin and sorrow, but of sickness as well, in many cases even to the averting of death itself by spiritual means alone. The healing of tuberculosis, tumor, cancer, lameness, blindness, rheumatism, locomotor ataxia, and a host of other afflictions, through the understanding of God as ever present and omnipotent good, proves the truth of the glorious vision of Christian Science, that God is now as real, as good, as powerful, and as truly present as Jesus and his followers found Him to be nearly twenty centuries ago, and here and everywhere as truly as in the hills of Galilee and in the valleys of Judæa. It is the consciousness of what this means by way of daily blessing and limitless hope that brings the expression of gratitude which is so notable in Christian Scientists.

This clergyman intimates that the will is the source of Christian Science healing, when in fact the human will is of no assistance whatever, and in some cases presents one of the serious obstacles to be overcome. There are hundreds of cases of tobacco, liquor, and drug habits, where the will had been tried in vain, which under Christian Science treatment have yielded without a struggle, often within a very brief space, and at times instantaneously. Christian Science does not state that there is no sense of pain, but that in reality there is no pain, for man is the offspring of God, as the Bible states, and is therefore "above sin or frailty" (Science and Health, p. 266); and when this fact is perceived and realized, the sense of pain disappears into its native nothingness.

Our critic, while repudiating eternal torment, accepts and approves torment here and now, and while repudiating a local hell, holds tenaciously to a local heaven inhabited by an anthropomorphic God. Christian Science stops at no halfway conclusion, but recognizes both hell and heaven as states of consciousness. "Heaven is not a locality, but a divine state of Mind in which all the manifestations of Mind are harmonious and immortal, because sin is not there and man is found having no righteousness of his own, but in possession of 'the Mind of the Lord,' as the Scripture says" (Science and Health, p. 291). This heaven is to be reached by acquiring a right understanding of God. "Acquaint now thyself with him [God], and be at peace." With each step toward a better consciousness, we lose something of hell and gain something of heaven. As with sin and sorrow, so with disease. A better understanding of God is shown in better health, better morals, and greater happiness, as we thus prove our understanding with every advance.

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