Article July 13, 1918 Issue

But what of the failures and inconsistencies of Christian Scientists?...

Peter V. Ross

Palo Alto (Cal.) Times

But what of the failures and inconsistencies of Christian Scientists? Christian Scientists are as keenly conscious of their shortcomings as is their exultant critic. They are not so confident as he, however, that any particular failure could have been avoided by a "perfectly simple operation." Most of us can recall several instances of people who submitted to perfectly simple and entirely successful operations, but who did not survive to enjoy the success or repent the simplicity.

When the great bridge in course of construction at Quebec fell into the river some eighteen months ago, no one questioned the principles of mechanics or censured the engineers. The case was simply one of unerring principles faultily applied by erring mortals. "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time," Mrs. Eddy tells us on page xi of the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."

But sometimes Christian Scientists err in applying the truth of divine Principle to individual cases. They make no pretension to infallibility. They claim no more than to have learned the alphabet of Christian Science and to have glimpsed the possibility of a full understanding, with the potentiality for good that rests therein. "I have never supposed the world would immediately witness the full fruitage of Christian Science," Mrs. Eddy writes (Science andHealth, p. 348), "or that sin, disease, and death would not be believed for an indefinite time; but this I do aver, that, as a result of teaching Christian Science, ethics and temperance have received an impulse, health has been restored, and longevity increased. If such are the present fruits, what will the harvest be, when this Science is more generally understood?"

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