Article October 14, 1922 Issue

Whatever may be one's individual views concerning Christian Science,...

Charles E. Heitman, Committee on Publication for the State of New York, in the

New York Post

Whatever may be one's individual views concerning Christian Science, it has served to build up a mighty religious organization extending to the uttermost corners of the earth, which could hardly have been reared on the uncertain foundations of superstitious beliefs and human philosophy, either modern or remote. Touching directly on this point, Mrs. Eddy writes in her work "No and Yes" (p. 9), "Science is not the shibboleth of a sect or the cabalistic insignia of philosophy; it excludes all error and includes all Truth." And again, on page 11, in the same book, she says, "Ancient and modern human philosophy are inadequate to grasp the Principle of Christian Science, or to demonstrate it."

The very fact that Christian Science teaches the oneness and allness of Spirit and the nothingness of matter, affirms the eternality of Life, denies the reality of sin, sickness, and death, as a part of God's creation, and establishes an impassable gulf between it and spiritualism. The whole structure of spiritualistic doctrine rests on the theory that matter and material personalities are real, and death an essential and indestructible part of man's experience, whereas the Scriptures aver that death is an enemy to be destroyed. Paul, it will be recalled, said, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Furthermore, Jesus at no time acknowledged the reality of dealth, but invariably met and mastered this manifestation of mortal belief through his understanding that God is Life, and therefore Life is spiritual, eternal, and indestructible. So important dis Mrs. Eddy consider the necessity for making plain the distinction between Christian Science and spiritualism that she devoted an entire chapter to the subject in her major work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," under the title "Christian Science versus Spiritualism." Even a casual reading of this chapter is sufficient to convince any fair-minded critic that the teachings of Christian Science stand squarely against occultism in all its phases. On page 84 of the volume and chapter just mentioned, occurs the following statement: "To understand that Mind is infinite, not bounded by corporeality, not dependent upon the ear and eye for sound or sight nor upon muscles and bones for locomotion, is a step towards the Mind-science by which we discern man's nature and existence. This true conception of being destroys the belief of spiritualism at its very inception, for without the concession of material personalities called spirits, spiritualism has no basis upon which to build."

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