Article January 13, 1917 Issue

Our critic agrees with Mrs. Eddy's fundamental teaching,...

Charles M. Shaw

Blackpool (England) Gazette-News

Our critic agrees with Mrs. Eddy's fundamental teaching, namely, the oneness of the universe, but he objects to the deductions drawn therefrom. One objection he states as follows: "She advanced the idea, which certainly had not the charm of novelty, that material things have no existence;" but this is not a correct statement of Mrs. Eddy's teaching. What she declares is, that the material sense of things is a false sense of spiritual realities, a declaration warranted by such a passage as this from Hebrews: "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear." St. Paul sets forth the transcendence of material sense by spiritual as a Christian duty, when he says, "While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Again, our critic objects to what he describes as Mrs. Eddy's "laboring under the idea that between spirit and matter there must be antagonism." She seems, nevertheless, to have excellent authority. Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Paul said in his epistle to the Galatians: "Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would."

The unreality of matter is a fundamental doctrine of Christian Science, and is a logical deduction from the existence of an infinite God, who is perfect being, Spirit, Love. Mrs. Eddy teaches that matter is a sense-phenomenon, the acceptance of which, with all it involves, leads to the debasement and destruction of human life, manifesting the carnal mind which is "enmity against God." Christian Science teaches that in the degree in which one transcends the belief in the reality of matter, in that degree can one heal the sick; and this is demonstrated in the experience of every true Christian Science practitioner.

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