Article November 10, 1917 Issue

Reference is made to Christian Science and mental science...

Hector Wallace Smith

Leith (Scotland) Observer

Reference is made to Christian Science and mental science in the column headed "Mainly for Women" in a recent issue of the Observer. One or two of the remarks made by your contributor are somewhat inaccurate.

Comparatively few people nowadays confuse Christian Science with its opposite, mental science. What is called mental science proceeds entirely from the philosophy of the carnal mind and will power, whereas Christian Science is the Science of the Christ and proceeds from the divine Mind, and unfolds the divine will in the human consciousness. Christ Jesus declared that he came to do the will of his Father, and Paul wrote to the Philippians, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

Your critic goes on to assert that Christian Scientists do not believe in the existence of evil at all, nor even in the existence of matter. Let me say that from the standpoint of absolute truth they certainly do not, because neither evil nor matter is eternal; but from the standpoint of material belief, or the phenomena of appearances, evil and matter do appear to exist in a temporal sense, and to this extent Christian Scientists admit the seeming existence of both. On pages 207 and 468 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy writes these words: "We must learn that evil is the awful deception and unreality of existence." "Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal."

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