Article July 8, 1916 Issue

In reporting an address given in the Touro Synagogue...

Robert C. Love—New Orleans, La.

The Times-Picayune

In reporting an address given in the Touro Synagogue your paper quotes the speaker as comparing Christian Science to mysticism. If we accept the definition of mysticism as a "knowledge unattainable by the natural intellect and incapable of being analyzed or explained," then the comparison appears to be a lack of understanding of the teachings of Christian Science on the part of our esteemed critic. If there is any mystery about its teachings and practice, it is the mystery found in the declaration, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord;" in interpreting the first commandment to apply to human interests and needs; in cultivating greater love and dependence upon God, "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases."

Any mystic philosophy about God contrasts strikingly with a practical rule of right thinking and doing in daily living. Salvation is not a multitudinous problem so much as an individual working out of one's own environment of evil influences, which make for unhappiness, sorrow, sickness, and sin. In the degree that each one assimilates the truth that makes free from temporal wickedness, will he be able to give expression to this in daily living, and gain his reward in a contented mentality which dispels speculation about God, inspires confidence, and unfolds a knowledge which is impartial in its beneficent influence and is available to all mankind.

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In reporting an address given in the Touro Synagogue...

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