Article April 8, 1916 Issue

In the address which was delivered before the Texas Hardware...

James D. Sherwood—Houston, Texas

The Chronicle

In the address which was delivered before the Texas Hardware and Implement Association in this city, Doctor —, who is said to be a student of psychology, is reported to have "challenged Mrs. Eddy and her followers in the field of Christian Science to prove that Mind is apart from matter or superior to matter." On page 24 of her book entitled "Retrospection and Introspection," Mrs. Eddy says, "During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation is Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon."

For half a century Christian Science has been successfully practised in healing all manner of disease and reforming the sinner by one and the same method, and that method is in strict accord with Mrs. Eddy's discovery above mentioned. That Mind is apart from matter is evidenced by the record of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis, where God said, "Let there be light: and there was light." Cause precedes effect. So with each phenomenon therein mentioned, divine Mind spake and brought it into existence.

That Mind is superior to matter was shown by Christ Jesus when he rebuked the wind and the waves and there was a great calm. (See Matt. viii. 23-27, and Luke viii. 22-25.) On this occasion it is especially mentioned by Matthew and Luke that the Master rebuked his disciples' lack of understanding of Mind's control over the elements, saying, "Where is your faith?" And they, being afraid, wondered, saying one to another, "What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him." This is Biblical authority for believing that Mind is apart from matter and that Mind is superior to matter. God is Spirit. Spirit and Mind are synonymous terms, and since God, Spirit, is infinite, All-in-all, it follows as a logical sequence that the opposite of Spirit, or what is termed matter, must be "that which seemeth to be and is not" (Science and Health, p. 472).

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