Article July 17, 1915 Issue

In a report of a sermon by the Rev. Mr.—, misstatements...

Harry I. Hunt

Atlantic City (N. J.) Press

In a report of a sermon by the Rev. Mr.—, misstatements are made concerning Christian Science. Our critic says that Christian Science is nonsense, because it teaches that pain, affliction, and sin do not exist. If our brother had studied Christian Science ever so little, he would have discovered that it does not deny that pain and affliction seem real to the physical senses. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 460 of Science and Health: "Sickness is neither imaginary nor unreal,—that is, to the frightened, false sense of the patient. Sickness is more than fancy; it is solid conviction." This false sense to which Mrs. Eddy refers is the mind of the flesh, the "carnal mind," of which Paul writes to the Romans: "To be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

According to Paul, therefore, it is this carnal, or as Mrs. Eddy terms it, mortal mind, which is responsible for death, and so for the experiences of pain which lead up to it. To be spiritually minded, then, is to escape from the sufferings entailed by the carnal mind; and this is what is meant by the apostle's injunction: "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." That "mind," which was certainly the divine Mind, overcame all manner of sickness, raised the dead, and finally enabled Jesus himself to triumph over death and the grave.

The works of healing which Jesus did, he distinctly declared in the first, second, and fourth gospels that his disciples would be able to perform. St. John's report of his explicit statement reads, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." If these words mean anything, they mean that a claim of Christianity is substantiated in proportion as the claimant is able to do the works Jesus did. In these words, also, the Master issued his proclamation of emancipation from all pain and suffering, and made it plain to all the world that the Christian healing which he taught and practised, and which was practised by the Christian church for nearly three hundred years after his ascension, is the way out of suffering for all mankind.

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