Article April 22, 1916 Issue

A clergyman in an address to the North End Brotherhood...

Charles W. J. Tennant

Croydon (England) Guardian

A clergyman in an address to the North End Brotherhood made a statement with regard to the teaching of Christian Science which is misleading. He said, "Christian Scientists today teach that pain and sorrow are unreal, and that if one only made one's self believe so, they would not exist." Our critic has not understood the meaning of the words real and unreal from the Christian Science point of view; hence his remark.

A very clear line is drawn between the absolute, or eternal, and the relative, or temporal, throughout the works of Mrs. Eddy. Pain and sorrow are temporal phenomena cognized by the physical senses. That they seem very real to these senses, no Christian Scientist would deny, but he would affirm they have no part in the eternal reality of being. The definition of reality according to Christian Science teaching is given on page 335 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, as follows: "Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal." It will readily be admitted that pain and sorrow cannot possibly come under this definition.

Our Master said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Now if pain and sorrow were manifestations of Truth, how could a knowledge of them make any one free from them? They are manifestations of erroneous thought, which must disappear before the light of spiritual understanding. Our Lord destroyed sin, disease, and death through his spiritual understanding of absolute, eternal truth, of which divine Mind is the divine Principle. Hence the admonition of St. Paul, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." In other words, think as Jesus thought, and your works will correspond. Has not our Master said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do"?

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