Article September 7, 1918 Issue

Christian Scientists do not publicly attack the religious...

Robert G. Steel

Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette

Christian Scientists do not publicly attack the religious convictions of others, believing that Gamaliel's advice to the men of Israel in its original purity of expression is as good counsel now as at the time it was uttered. The correspondent who in a recent issue paraphrased Christian Science in his labored attempt to belittle another's belief, succeeded in showing only how far he lags in the rear of the advancing thought of even the natural scientists regarding matter.

Ascribing to God the creation of matter makes Him responsible for all the sin, sickness, discord, and woe which seem to exist in the world, a concept of Deity completely at variance with the Bible and consequently wholly untrue. Christian Science teaching is based on the Scriptural concept of an infinitely good God, incapable of causing evil or of permitting its existence. The wonder should be not that people accept this teaching but that anyone who intelligently reads or studies the Bible, or who will do a little independent thinking along religious lines, can do anything else, since upon this absolute truth are predicated the many manifestations of God's power given in the Old Testament and the greater demonstrations of Christ Jesus recorded in the New.

Jesus proved matter to be unreal, and but the false testimony of the material senses, by walking on the water, appearing through closed doors, transporting himself instantly from one place to another, stilling the tempest, healing the sick, casting out evil, raising the dead, overcoming death for himself, and in his final ascension out of material sight. Had he believed matter to be real and material law to be supreme, none of these things would have been possible to him. His advice to the Jews, which is good to-day, was, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment," knowing that the testimony of the so-called material senses could not be trusted. On page 337 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy writes: "The visible universe and material man are the poor counterfeits of the invisible universe and spiritual man. Eternal things (verities) are God's thoughts as they exist in the spiritual realm of the real. Temporal things are the thoughts of mortals and are the unreal, being the opposite of the real or the spiritual and eternal."

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