Article July 8, 1916 Issue

In an issue of the Western Colorado Evangel appeared...

Ezra W. Palmer

Grand Junction (Col.) News

In an issue of the Western Colorado Evangel appeared an article entitled "True Science and Christian Science," in which materia medica was extolled as the true science which saves mankind from disease and death, while Christian Science, which teaches reliance on God alone for healing the sick, was scoffed at. Christian Scientists have no criticism of physicians or of those who use drugs or other material remedies. They thoroughly believe that each one should have the freedom to use such means for overcoming physical infirmities as he deems best. Christian Scientists rely on Christian Science because they have received more benefits from this teaching than from drugs or physicians. In fact many of them were healed after material remedies had failed.

To claim that materia medica is a science is to fly in the face of logic as well as of experience. No system can claim to be a science unless it is founded on a fundamental basis and develops logically from that basis. This, materia medica does not do, for it has no fundamental basis; it is purely empirical. The drug or system employed yesterday is discarded as useless today, and this constant flux has been characteristic of materia medica from Hippocrates to the present time. Christian Science, however, is scientific, since its basis is the allness of God, and from this basis flows all its conculsions and results. Christian Science heals by means of scientific, exact knowledge of God, which is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Jesus healed instantly, without drugs, because he had a clear, demonstrable knowledge of God, the only genuine healer of men.

The critic seeks to convey the impression that Christian Science would be powerless to aid the soldier on the field of battle. He might just as well have disparaged the Christianity which Christ Jesus brought to the world and have declared it valueless to save men from the horrors of war, since Christian Science follows implicitly the teachings of the Master both in healing sickness and in destroying sin. Wars are the result of the refusal of men and nations to follow the teachings of the Founder of Christianity. When Christian Science, which reinstates primitive Christianity, is accepted by mankind, wars will cease, and sin and disease will be conquered.

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