Article July 1, 1916 Issue

While we appreciate the very kindly attitude of the clergyman...

Thomas F. Watson

Berkeley (Cal.) Gazette

While we appreciate the very kindly attitude of the clergyman in his discourse on Christian Science as a "Contribution to Our Common Christianity," in which he acknowledged that Christian Science contains certain "great values which all of us need," yet the assertion in his second sercom on the "Philosophy of Christian Science" that "there is a mingling of light and darkness, of truth and error," is rebuked by Bible teaching. Jesus said, "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? . . . so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh." The Master taught that "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand ;" and he also declared, "A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit." A religion which heals the sick and reforms the sinner, as Christian Science has done, cannot be said to be a "mingling of light and darkness, of truth and error," for Jesus said, "By their fruits ye shall know them."

Mrs. Eddy never claimed Christian Science to be a "message which God had kept to be announced through her to men." Jesus unfolded the same message over nineteen hundred years ago when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." He taught his followers to heal the sick through understanding the law of Spirit, and the early Christians continued this healing work for about three hundred years. Mrs. Eddy discovered this Christ Science, and no one who believes in the spiritual truth and authenticity of the Bible can consistently oppose her teaching, since it is founded upon the Word of God. Christian Science does not rest upon the negation of matter, but is founded upon the omnipotence of good, Spirit, which necessarily implies the impotence of evil, or matter. Moses declared, "The Lord he is God; there is none else beside him;" and the Master said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing."

Our friendly critic commends the teaching of the superiority of Mind over matter, but is not yet prepared to let go of matter as a real entity. Yet many of the leading physicists of today tell us that matter is a mental concept; that it is "a form of energy;" that "matter can only be explained by explaining it away." One of the greatest chemists of today has declared that matter is "only a thing imagined, which we have constructed for ourselves, very imperfectly, to represent the constant element in the changing series of phenomena." The great Master demonstrated the allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter when he healed the lepers, walked on the water, and appeared through closed doors.

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