Article July 3, 1915 Issue

We notice in a recent issue a sermon in which the endeavor...

Willis D. McKinstry—Leavenworth, Kan.

The Times

We notice in a recent issue a sermon in which the endeavor is made to bring Christian Science into disrepute by having the reading public believe that "Christian Science is not Scriptural." While Christian Science takes issue with the physical or material sense-testimony of existence, it adheres supremely to the injunction set forth in the first commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Thus Christian Science admits of no mind, intelligence, substance, being, action, or law apart from God, Spirit. "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."

Starting with an infinite, omnipresent, all-powerful God as the creator of all, it naturally and indisputably follows that by reason of the spiritual law of cause and effect, whatever proceeds from or manifests this infinite creator must be in nature, character, and quality like Him. That which appears according to the testimony of personal sense, is therefore in opposition to spiritual being, and thus its claim of existence—without Principle, substance, or law—is suppositional. Jesus' demonstrations clearly showed the infinitude of spiritual law, whereby every phase of so-called physical law was made void. He walked on the waters, stilled the storm, turned the water into wine, multiplied the loaves and fishes; he healed the sick, the halt, the blind, the dumb; he restored to life the brother of Mary and the daughter of Jairus. Existence is, and Jesus knew the truth about it.

When Jesus and his disciples were overtaken with a storm while at sea, and his disciples awoke him from his sleep, saying, "Lord, save us: we perish," he did not say to them, There is a storm, but he did say, knowing the omnipotence of God, "Peace, be still," and the storm abated. Nor did he say to the one sick of the palsy that he was a sick man, but rather, "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house." Christian Science teaches that the phenomena, or appearances, of sin, disease, and death are but errors of belief, emanating from the carnal mind, which is "enmity against God." Intelligence is a quality or attribute of the Mind which is God. This intelligence was expressed through Christ Jesus, who knew the unreality and unreliability of the teachings of the five physical senses and demonstrated the indestructibility of Truth and Truth's ideas. Jesus expressed this intelligent knowledge or understanding of scientific being when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

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