Article April 10, 1920 Issue

The success of Christian Science throughout the world in...

Aaron E. Brandt

The Butler (Pa.) Citizen

The success of Christian Science throughout the world in healing the sick and reforming the sinful through a correct knowledge of Bible teaching has grown to such proportions as to become one of the marvels of the world. In half a century its organized churches and societies have reached a total of eighteen hundred and its membership includes many of the most intelligent people in the world. It is not surprising at all that such a substantial growth should result in occasional but needless alarm among ministers of other churches who have not studied the subject sufficiently to understand its absolutely scientific and Christian nature, or who have studied and foreseen the doom of religious dogmas, but without comprehending the fact that better things are coming. Hence there are occasional outbreaks such as appeared recently in The Citizen against what Christian Science is supposed to be, but which upon examination turns out to be only a belaboring of the critic's own erroneous concepts about a subject of which he has either a very superficial and incorrect knowledge, or which he deliberately misrepresents. In fact his presentation is so far from being a correct one regarding Christian Science that, if true, no intelligent person would accept this religion.

No one has ever successfully refuted the truth of Mrs. Eddy's teaching, and every attempt to do so has only resulted in misrepresenting the subject or in repudiating the teaching of Christ Jesus. That his teaching and Christian Science are in absolute accord, there is no doubt among those who have reached a demonstrable understanding of the subject, including clergymen. This particular critic attempts to justify his attack on the ground that if Christian Science "just confined its claims and activities to a mindcure, which in reality," he alleges, "it is, and made no pretensions of being God-inspired and God-revealed, then the Christian pulpit would have nothing to do with it or say about it." This reverend critic may be one of those who believe that unintelligent matter and drugs were provided of God to heal the sick, while mind or intelligence was not. Nevertheless, the critic was never more mistaken in his life than when he assumed that the teachings and practice of Christian Science are based on the human mind. The Pharisees made the same mistake when accusing Jesus of casting our devils through Beelzebub. On the contrary, Christian Science accepts absolutely the Mind which Paul said was in Christ Jesus, and by manifesting that Mind, destroys the human or carnal mind, which is responsible for all evil. This results in making better Christians and better citizens, better in health and morals, with a profound gratitude and love for Bible truths, especially the teaching of Christ Jesus, and for a little understanding of his spiritual method of healing.

Whatever the theory of matter among naturalists may be to-day, the general opinion is that matter is an abstraction or manifestation of force or energy, the phenomenon of some unknown cause; that their knowledge of matter is knowledge of its properties. Of its substance, if it have any, they know nothing. The greatest thinkers of the world declare, however, that the properties of matter are mental and their cause mental. Professor Fiske, formerly a lecturer on philosophy in Harvard University, is authority for the following: "All the qualities of matter are what the mind makes them, and have no existence as such apart from the mind." He also says, "Apart from consciousness, there are no such things as color, form, position, or hardness, and there is no such thing as matter." An extract from a textbook on physics, by Henderson and Woodhull of Columbia University, has the following: "Matter makes itself known to us by the testimony of the senses. . . . We see, hear, smell, taste, touch, in our consciousness only. We cannot assert, therefore, that matter exists apart from this consciousness."

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