Article August 7, 1915 Issue

A sermon entitled "The Truth about Christian Science,"...

Harry I. Hunt

Long Branch (N. J.) Record

A sermon entitled "The Truth about Christian Science," reported in a recent issue of the Record, contains so many misstatements that it should not pass without correction. Indeed, the discourse travels so far from the truth that it is apparent our critic has given his attention to criticisms of Christian Science rather than to a study of Christian Science itself. It is quite evident, also, that the critic has forgotten the command of the Master, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment."

Abuse of Mrs. Eddy is of course no argument against Christian Science, and intelligent people are apt to regard it as evidence of an intolerance which is all the more regrettable when expressed by one who is supposed to be an exponent of the golden rule. When with little trouble the facts about Mrs. Eddy's life may be obtained in almost any public library, there is no excuse whatever for a clergyman to "bear false witness" against one who has done so much to lift the burden of pain and sorrow and to redeem men and women from lives of sin and suffering.

To say that Mrs. Eddy simply took Berkeley's idealistic system of philosophy and called it Christian Science, is to betray an ignorance of both Berkeley's philosophy and Christian Science. Bishop Berkeley based his philosophy upon God, or Mind, as the first cause, but in defining matter as the expression of Mind, he plunged headlong into pantheism. On the other hand, Mrs. Eddy makes her startingpoint the declaration of the Scripture, "Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord,"—the one omnipotent, omnipresent, all-knowing Mind, or Spirit, whose creation is spiritual; and on the subject of matter she takes a stand directly opposed to that of Berkeley. Mrs. Eddy teaches that "matter is nothing beyond an image in mortal mind" (Science and Health, p. 116), and is not real substance. Natural scientists now explain matter as energy, or "centers of force," and so explain matter away. Our critic, therefore, in ridiculing Mrs. Eddy for her teachings on matter, also heaps ridicule upon the most advanced natural scientists and thinkers of the day.

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