Article May 25, 1918 Issue

In a recent issue a special writer charges that Christian Science...

George R. Lowe

Toronto (Ontario) Mail and Empire

In a recent issue a special writer charges that Christian Science is "the gospel of being comfortable," in contrast with asceticism and Puritanism, as well as with reasonable Christianity. He alleges that for the world's woes—sin, disease, death—Christian Science offers the solution of ignoring them—an ignorant solution, to be sure.

Christian Science does not advise merely a closing of one's eyes to the horrors of sinfulness and the denying that there is any such thing as sin. But it does point out that God, divine Love, is not the author of discord of any sort. The prophet Habakkuk declared that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil." To turn away from sin to the pure, loving Father is the way in Christian Science. To turn to Love for relief and is also involved in this. It might be said truly that Christian Science is the gospel of spiritual comfort. It is not a new gospel, for St. Paul wrote of "the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God." In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 101), Mrs. Eddy says, "Discomfort under error is preferable to comfort."

Christian Science is not made up of abstract "denials," but of spiritual affirmations. A soldier with a grievous wound, who answers cheerfully, "Doing finely, thank you," who does not weakly side with the worst evidence of the senses suggesting pain and death, manifests more manliness than the self-pitying mortal, the unfortunate hypochondriac, or the pampered invalid. Right thinking does not magnify human ailments, but aims to surmount and to heal them. True sympathy encourages the sufferer to endure and to rise to higher altitudes of thought. Thus climbing the mountain of human experience, the sunlit heights are reached at length, and the joy of victory is achieved. This is the sort of comfort that Christian Science presents, the joy of spiritual ascendancy.

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