Article February 21, 1920 Issue

Christian Science is not a cult, but, as its name implies,...

E. Warwick Broadbent

Halifax (England) Guardian

Christian Science is not a cult, but, as its name implies, it is the scientific or exact knowledge of the Christ, Truth, which may be demonstrated or proved by anyone who is willing to put its teachings into practice. Christian Scientists do not ask anyone to believe,—the world has believed long enough; what they do ask, however, is that the divine law underlying the teaching and works of Christ Jesus shall again be understood and demonstrated in the amelioration of suffering and discord of every kind. Mrs. Eddy discovered this divine law of Life, Truth, and Love, and named her discovery Christian Science; and is it to be wondered at that those who have been healed in Christian Science should be grateful to her for once more bringing this great truth to the world?

It is of no use to take odd sentences from their context and ask what can be made of them. Christian Science, whether "Moderatus" understands it or not, is in no way connected with pantheism, but, on the contrary, is directly opposed to it, teaching that God or Life is neither in nor of matter, in spite of the fact that this may seem to be so to false material sense. Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 588), "There is but one I, or Us, but one divine Principle, or Mind, governing all existence;" and on page 591 she says of Mind, that it is "not that which is in man, but the divine Principle, or God, of whom man is the full and perfect expression."

Mrs. Eddy nowhere says that Christian Science delivered her from the trivialities of grammar, but all through her writings her words are chosen with the greatest care, having regard to their dictionary meaning. She says, beginning on page 114 of the textbook: "Apart from the usual opposition to everything new, the one great obstacle to the reception of that spirituality, through which the understanding of Mind science comes, is the inadequacy of material terms for metaphysical statements, and the consequent difficulty of so expressing metaphysical ideas as to make them comprehensible to any reader, who has not personally demonstrated Christian Science as brought forth in my discovery. ... The great difficulty is to give the right impression, when translating material terms back into the original spiritual tongue." We may certainly have spent years in the company of Kant, Hegel, Locke, and so forth, but what the world requires today is the practical, vitalizing truth which Christ Jesus taught and demonstrated by his mighty works; this truth has again been revealed to this age by Mrs. Eddy in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which book has indeed unlocked the treasures of the Bible for thousands upon thousands of seekers in all parts of the world.

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