Editorial October 28, 1916 ISSUE

The Tempter Exposed

William D. McCrackan

In naming this periodical Christian Science Sentinel, Mrs. Eddy assures us on page 353 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" that she intended it "to hold guard over Truth, Life, and Love." In order to further this important purpose it becomes necessary to use these pages from time to time in order to warn and to forewarn. What in a word is the summing up of all the attempts of the tempter, the adversary, the slanderer or deceiver, in regard to Christian Science? Is it not to substitute for it the term hypnotism? Is it not to induce humanity to believe a lie about the truth which makes free? The purpose of the tempter is to force upon defenseless seekers after righteousness a counterfeit will for the divine, a false self for the real man, a vagrant mesmerism for the power of pure Mind.

Jesus refuted the pretense of human will-power to be God's will when he made the superhuman declaration, "Not my will, but thine, be done." He definitely decided the controversy between the belief of mortal man power and the understanding of the Christ-power in asserting, "I can of mine own self do nothing." But Jesus had his forty days in the wilderness, when the tempter whom he unceremoniously designated as a liar argued to him in vain. This stupendous temptation of Jesus is not to be dogmatically explained, and only growth in grace can reveal its exact import; but cannot the loyal Christian Scientist already declare that what Jesus met and mastered in the wilderness was what Mrs. Eddy has unmasked in her writings as animal magnetism, at one time more generally called mesmerism and now known as hypnotism?

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