Article February 24, 1917 Issue

There is a vast difference between what critics think Christian Science...

Lloyd B. Coate

Steubenville (Ohio) Herald

There is a vast difference between what critics think Christian Science to be and what it really is. When it is rightly understood it can have no other effect upon one's life than to increase his faith and reliance in the true and living God. It awakens a greater love for the Bible, and a greater desire to strive to follow in the footsteps of Christ Jesus.

Mrs. Eddy never boasted that she would not pass through "the valley of the shadow of death," but she believed in and exhorted and encouraged Christians to accept Christ's promise of eternal life. The unjust and unkind thrust at Mrs. Eddy, who advocated "more faith in living than in dying" (Science and Health, p. 368), when closely analyzed, is not so much an attack on her as it is on the Founder of Christianity, Christ Jesus, who is responsible for this life giving teaching. It was Jesus who said: "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." "I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?"

Our critic is reported as saying, "Whenever you find a woman embracing Christian Science you find a woman who never had any regard for his (Jesus') personal honor, if she does not eventually come back to him." Many of the men and women now interested in Christian Science were formerly members of evangelical churches. Instead of Christian Science leading them astray, it has led them to accept more fully Jesus' teaching. Christian Science teaches that mankind can be saved only through Christ, Truth, as taught and demonstrated by Jesus. As a matter of fact, the people who have gained an understanding of Christian Science have more faith in Christ than they had before knowing of Christian Science.

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