Article February 11, 1922 Issue

In an issue of your paper you publish a report of two...

Samuel J. Macdonald—Asbury Park, N. J.

The Evening Press

In an issue of your paper you publish a report of two sermons preached in the Ocean Grove Auditorium, and some of the reported statements do not accord with truth and fact. One of these statements is as follows: "Mary Baker Eddy," the speaker said, "states regarding the resurrection that Jesus Christ swooned and pretended to be dead while he was in the grave." But Mrs. Eddy made no such statement or any statement like it or upon which it could truthfully be based. The word "swooned" does not occur in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, nor in any other of her published writings; neither does she use any word of similar import in writing of Jesus Christ. The words "pretend" or "pretended" are also absent from Science and Health, and Mrs. Eddy never made any statement either directly or indirectly imputing to Jesus any pretense or pretension of any kind or degree. The reverend gentleman must have been misled into making the quoted statement, which is entirely untrue.

Among "the important points, or religious tenets of Christian Science," as stated on page 497 of Science and Health is the following: "5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter." Mrs. Eddy also writes on page 39 of Science and Health, "The Bible calls death an enemy, and Jesus overcame death and the grave instead of yielding to them."

The preacher also made this statement which should not pass unnoticed: "He yielded his life that we might escape the powers of death and to guarantee the resurrection of the human body. The resurrection of the human body is absolutely certain." This compels us to wonder whether the preacher ever read Paul's teaching upon this great subject in the immortal fifteenth chapter of I Corinthians, in the forty-fourth verse of which he declares, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." In the book of Proverbs, 10:19, it is wisely written, "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin" (or error) and it would assuredly be a fine thing if all public speakers would ever bear this solemn warning in mind.

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