Article February 15, 1919 ISSUE

Human Hypotheses

FRANK. H. SPRAGUE

Whenever a fresh revelation of Truth is voiced to the world, the carnal mind, or material consciousness, seeks to put the new wine of spiritual inspiration into the old wine skins of limiting formulas and paralyzing dogmas. So subtle and gradual is the reactionary process that the transition from a spiritual to a material standpoint takes place almost unconsciously. No great religious movement of the past has escaped this fate; all have yielded, to a greater or less extent, to the persuasions of material sense and forfeited their essential spiritual quality and redemptive power. This deplorable result has been due in part to the tendency to interpret the new tongue of spiritual revelation in terms of materiality. Thus it was that, after a brief season, the healing, regenerating gospel proclaimed to mankind by Jesus of Nazareth and his earlier followers was sacrificed to barren theories and banal creeds based on varying interpretations of the New Testament writings, until religion became a thing of belief rather than of demonstration.

The vital element of Christianity had, therefore, to be rediscovered and reinstated in human experience by one whose thought was spiritual enough to pierce the clouds of traditional theology and apprehend spiritual reality anew. In order that the Science of Christianity might be rendered available for all human needs, its Discoverer, Mrs. Eddy, was led to embody the truth of her revelation in a textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." These steps, momentous in themselves, were but preliminary, however, to more comprehensive developments in the evangelization of human concepts. In the problems and contingencies which arise along the way, the serpent, material sense, following close upon the heel of the woman, is ever ready to establish the belief of reversal by taking advantage of human shortcomings. Hence the temptation which besets Christian Scientists to put faith and spiritual understanding again under bonds to speculative hypotheses and dogmatic opinions, thereby defeating the end of Christian practice. Because of the lucidity of thought and exactness of diction which characterize our Leader's writings, any uncertainty as to the truth she teaches is inexcusable. With faithfulness in their study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings they will see the falsity of all materialistic hypotheses and hold so faithfully to the spiritual significance of the Scriptures as to avoid the contentions of opposing sects which have too long darkened religious history.

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