Article April 29, 1916 Issue

It is unfortunate that the reverend gentleman whose attack...

Daniel M. Ely

Basil (Ohio) Record

It is unfortunate that the reverend gentleman whose attack on Christian Science appeared in a recent issue of the Record should have based his remarks upon a tract instead of gaining his information from the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. These tracts attacking Christian Science, which have been distributed in large numbers, in almost every instance are largely made up of quotations from the text-book which have been separated from their context in such a manner as to rob them of the meaning Mrs. Eddy conveyed.

Christian Science teaches that God is Life, Truth, Love, Mind, Soul, Principle. These terms express the nature of God — His oneness and allness. It also teaches that God is not a person in the sense of finite personality; God is not a man magnified. On page 336 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says: "God is individual and personal in a scientific sense, but not in any anthropomorphic sense. Therefore man, reflecting God, cannot lose his individuality." Christian Science teaches that man is the image and likeness of God; never that man is God, but that man does coexist with God, in whom he lives and has his being. "Human philosophy," Mrs. Eddy tells us, "has made God manlike. Christian Science makes man Godlike" (Science and Health, p. 269). It teaches that Jesus was the son of a virgin, that he demonstrated the Christ and is the Wayshower. Speaking of his human relationship, Jesus called himself the "Son of man." When referring to his inseparable relation to God the Father, he declared himself to be the "Son of God."

As defined in Science and Health "the spiritual essence of blood is sacrifice" (p. 25); and in proportion as we live the life of Jesus, following in his footsteps and having that Mind in us which was also in him, do we indeed drink his blood and eat his flesh, not in worship of the symbol, but as he said all true worshipers should worship — "in spirit and in truth." Science and Health is not intended to supersede the Bible, but is what its subtitle indicates — a "Key to the Scriptures." The Authorized Version of the Bible is used in all Christian Science churches and Sunday schools, and the followers of Christian Science subscribe to this tenet, which is given on page 497 of Science and Health: "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life."

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