Article February 19, 1916 Issue

To quote passages from Mrs. Eddy's writings which pertain...

Thomas E. Boland

Easton (Pa.) Free Press

To quote passages from Mrs. Eddy's writings which pertain to the spiritual, perfect man, made in the image and likeness of God, and then apply them to mortal, material, human beings, is completely to distort their intended meaning. The text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," is sufficiently clear on this point to be understood by an earnest reader, for there we read, "Man is the likeness of Spirit, but a material personality is not this likeness;" also, "A sinful, sick, and dying mortal is not the likeness of God, the perfect and eternal" (pp. 544, 292). Mrs. Eddy did not teach that the spiritual, perfect man, the image and likeness of God, is sinful or sick or dies, any more than God Himself is sinful or sick or dies. It ought to be clear, however, that she recognized that these misfortunes come into human experience, since she devoted forty-four years to teaching how to overcome them and ameliorate their results.

The critic objects to Mrs. Eddy's views on death being an unreality, and in proof quotes Jesus' declaration, "Lazarus is dead," entirely overlooking those other words of the Master recorded just a few lines previous to the above quotation: "Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep." Seeing that his disciples had not understood him, he then used the language with which they were familiar. Again, when called to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, Jesus said of the daughter who they had told him was dead, "Weep not; she is not dead, but sleepeth," and straightway restored her. Mrs. Eddy's teaching relative to death is simply that it is not a creation of God, not an eternal fact of being. She did not deny that it comes into human experience, any more than she denied that sin and misfortune come into human experience. These errors are not, however, regarded as God-created or God-sent.

It is seldom indeed that any critic, however careless of a basis for his accusations, alludes to Christian Science as a "peril to the home." Mrs. Eddy's writings will be searched in vain for the least far-fetched shred of evidence to support such an utterly unjust and untrue statement. If Christian Science involved any such thing, the tree would long ago have been known by its fruits. The lives of Christian Scientists constitute a sufficient refutation of this falsification. The chapter Marriage, in Science and Health, sets forth the author's views on this subject. One quotation (p. 56) will serve as an illustration: "Infidelity to the marriage covenant is the social scourge of all races, the 'pestilence that walketh in darkness, . . . the destruction that wasteth at noonday.' The commandment, 'Thou shalt not commit adultery,' is no less imperative than the one, 'Thou shalt not kill.' Chastity is the cement of civilization and progress. Without it there is no stability in society."

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