Article August 28, 1915 Issue

The "new name"

JESSIE BALFOUR ELLIS

Mrs. Eddy's gift to the world is the discovery of the divine Principle on which to establish and demonstrate all facts about the nature of God and man. In St. John's revelation we are told of the rewards to be bestowed upon "him that overcometh," one being thus defined: "I will write upon him my new name."

Christian Science, the "new name" for the scientific knowledge of God, has excited and still excites remonstrance from those who, admittedly or otherwise, regard the teaching of Jesus as an impossible ideal for humanity, and from those who think of science as being essentially founded on what they call material law. The existence of material law would imply the existence of matter as a reality; and the instability of foundation for the latter hypothesis needs no further demonstration than the ever changing definitions of matter supplied by students of natural science, so called, ultimating in the statement recently made by a distinguished thinker, that "the natural scientist in explaining matter has explained it away."

It was inevitable that natural science and religion should appear irreconcilable so long as the former insisted on the reality of matter, while the latter regarded man as partly spiritual and partly material. That man is wholly spiritual, that he is subject to no material limitations, was incontrovertibly proved by Jesus; but the religious world had for many centuries lost sight of the true significance of his victory over all that menaces man's peace before our Leader made the fearless statement, "Man is not material; he is spiritual" (Science and Health, p. 468). The point at issue between the two sets of thinkers was thus made clear. Moreover, in this brief sentence Mrs. Eddy expressed the very essence of the revelation she had received of the Principle on which Jesus did his mighty works, the Principle which he commanded his students to continue to demonstrate for all time.

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