Article October 6, 1917 Issue

The canard against Christian Science, which one of your...

Judge Clifford P. Smith in

Springfield (Mass.) Union

The canard against Christian Science, which one of your correspondents repeats, has been rehashed with variations for a decade or more and frequently exposed. The story is that a native of India was told of Christian Science when she came to America, and recognized it as an ancient Indian philosophy. The nature of the information furnished to this visitor from afar is not stated, but it can be gathered from her explanation of the philosophy which she identified with Christian Science. "It means just this: the philosophy of nothingness. You are to view the whole universe as nothing but falsehood. You do not exist. I do not exist. The birds and the beasts that you see do not exist." This narrative is most inept because Christian Science does not teach anything of the sort. Incidentally, it can be said that no one ever adopted such a philosophy for himself. The thought "I do not exist," is an intellectual impossibility.

It is to be observed in the New Testament that Jesus expressed the object of his entire service to humanity in terms of life. He did this not only once, but often. The end of all that he said or did was that we might forsake the finite and gain the infinite sense of life. Included in this is all that constitutes salvation. Christendom has been accustomed to look for salvation to the death of Jesus, but in his teaching the essential factor was his life. As he himself said, "Because I live, ye shall live also."

What was the basis from which Jesus taught and proved the true idea of life? He expressed it in such statements as the following: "As the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself." "I live by the Father." "One is your Father." "All live unto him." Because these sayings are true, what Mrs. Eddy has written concerning the nature of the experience called death must also be true. No difference what the mortal seeming in any case may be, the actual life of man is never ended; it is never even arrested.

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