Article February 11, 1922 Issue

With reference to a letter in an issue of your paper,...

Clifford P. Smith

Springfield (Mass.) Union

With reference to a letter in an issue of your paper, kindly permit me to say in your columns that nearly all students of Christian Science have easily understood its distinction between what is real and what merely seems to be real. In practical application, many students of Christian Science have found this distinction to be not only intelligible but demonstrable. Daily and hourly throughout the world Christian Science practitioners and other Christian Scientists who are not usually called practitioners are proving that the teaching of Christian Science on this subject involves benefits of the utmost value to mankind. Now, if a person understands Christian Science teaching on this point, and wishes to state it fairly, he should not merely say, "Christian Science teaches there is no sin." He should not do this any more than he should quote only the first part of the following definition of "substance" in Webster's New International Dictionary: "That which is real, in distinction from that which is apparent." Any one who desire to understand or to state fairly the teaching of Christian Science on this point should state it in both of its aspects.

The following is one of the many statements on this subject made by Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science: "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical" (Science and Health, p. 472). Again, any one who wishes to understand or to state fairly the teaching of Christian Science on another subject should not quote by itself only the second sentence of the following paragraph from page 25 of the same book: "The spiritual essence of blood is sacrifice. The efficacy of Jesus' spiritual offering is infinitely greater than can be expressed by our sense of human blood. The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was shed upon 'the accursed tree,' than when it was flowing in his veins as he went daily about his Father's business. His true flesh and blood were his Life; and they truly eat his flesh and drink his blood, who partake of that divine Life."

Of course, if any one believes that salvation from evil depends on regarding evil as real, that is his own affair. So, also, if any one believes that the fulfillment of the mission of Christ Jesus depended on whether the violence done to him resulted in the loss of material blood, that also would be a matter of personal faith or opinion. Christian Scientists, entertaining other views, simply desire that the same be understood truly and stated fairly.

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