Article July 29, 1916 Issue

In the columns of your paper is given a report of a sermon...

W. D. Kilpatrick

The Hesperia (Mich.) Union

In the columns of your paper is given a report of a sermon against Christian Science by a local minister which, in justice to this religion and to those interested in knowing the truth about it, requires some correction. In the first place, let me state that Christian Science is strictly Scriptural; that is, it is founded on the Scriptures exclusively, agrees with the Bible in its spiritual import from beginning to end, and in addition offers to sick, sinning, and suffering humanity ample proof of its divine authority in its exemplification of the teachings of the Master in healing the sick, casting out sin, and comforting the sorrowing.

The Christian Science movement has grown and is growing in a manner unparalleled in religious history, simply because it proves itself to be true, and in so doing proves the Bible to be true. All the religious theory and speculation of the ages comes to naught unless followed by proof, and herein lies the explanation of the success of Christian Science,—it proves itself. The Bible teaches that God is infinite, is Love, Life, and Spirit; and it would seem an impossibility to conceive of God as infinite and at the same time confine our concept of Him to that of an embodied or circumscribed personality. Jesus said, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." In the light of this saying the contention of our critic that Christ Jesus was both person and Deity is a contradiction in itself. Christian Science teaches that Jesus was the son of Mary as the Bible declares, or as Mrs. Eddy puts it on page 589 of Science and Health, he was "the highest human corporeal concept of the divine idea, rebuking and destroying error and bringing to light man's immortality." It further teaches that the Christ is that truth which Jesus taught and demonstrated by "signs following," that Comforter which he said should remain with us forever. Nothing in the Bible could possibly be construed to convey the impression that Jesus was God or even so considered himself.

Christian Science teaches that the real man—the man created in the image and likeness of God—is incapable of sin, and that God is not the creator and author of sin, sickness, or death. Christian Science does not teach that the so—called mortal or carnal man is incapable of sin, but that sin brings suffering to those indulging in it, and that so long as mortals believe in the pleasure of sin they will experience the painful consequences thereof. Christian Science teaches that prayer without ceasing, watchfulness, self—forgetfulness, and recognition of God and God alone as the Father of all, are the means whereby mortals may escape from sin and sickness and thereby come "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," whereby they may put off the old man and put on the new.

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