Article April 22, 1916 Issue

According to a recent announcement in the press, an...

Samuel Greenwood—Vancouver, British Columbia

The Sun

According to a recent announcement in the press, an address was given before the Ministerial Association by a local clergyman in which Christian Science was referred to as a parody on Christianity. Christian Science is the religion of a large and ever-increasing number of earnest and devoted men and women who, it might be noted, have accepted its teachings because of conviction and practical demonstration, and not because it was the religion of their parents. They are generally admitted to be an intelligent body of people.

On what grounds, may we ask, do these ministers of the gospel base their decision? Is it because Christian Science is encouraging men to have more faith in God than they had before? Is it because it teaches that Christ is still the great Physician, and as ready to help men today as he was twenty centuries ago in Palestine? Is it because its adherents are actually finding in the practice of its teachings that which feeds their spiritual hunger and brings relief from the troubles and torments of mortal existence? Or do they take the position that because Christian Science does not coincide with their viewpoint in all things, it must necessarily be wrong?

It should be remembered that Christianity is the gospel of deeds, not of creeds. Jesus gave an infallible rule whereby to judge such things, a rule that rises above all human theories and opinions: that a tree must be judged by its fruits, not by its leaves or the soil in which it grows. He did not say that a Christian must subscribe to a particular doctrine. He did not teach that one's Christianity depends upon whether he accepts the doctrine of the Trinity, or the Adamic fall, or predestination, or whether he believes in any of the other things over which men have fought and divided. What he did say was, "By their fruits ye shall know them," implying that it is not one's articles of faith but the life he lives that makes one a Christian.

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