Article April 8, 1922 Issue

My attention was called to the report in your paper of...

Marie Hartman—The Hague, Holland (translation)

Doetichemsch Weekblad

My attention was called to the report in your paper of a lecture by a clergyman entitled "The Problem of Suffering." In it he says, "The Christian Scientists kill the problem by denying the suffering." These words do not express the teachings of Christian Science on the subject, and therefore I trust that you will allow me to explain briefly our view of this problem.

Christian Science does not deny that in human experience there is, indeed, much suffering, and the way in which its adherents endeavor to express in their lives something of that Mind of Christ shows that they are not blind to the needs of their fellow-men. Would the great multitude of Christian Science practitioners stand ready day and night to lead all those who ask their help to the Father, "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases," if they denied the suffering of humanity? Would the War Relief Fund have been founded, to which Christian Scientists the whole world over contributed with joy thousands and thousands of dollars, to help many in all possible ways, not only in the countries at war, but also in those where the people suffered as a result of the war? In Holland I know that many gratefully remember the help of the Christian Scientists and the work done by them during the war, and that is being done even now in those countries where it is needed. No, indeed, this is not "killing the problem," but solving it, by showing to humanity something of God's saving and redeeming love.

Christian Science teaches that suffering is primarily the result of ignorance of God; not the deliberate punishment of a definite sin, but the result of belief in life and intelligence apart from God. The suffering may be compared to the effect of sticking barbed wire along the straight path. If we wander from the path, if we serve or acknowledge another power than God, good, we come in touch with the wire, which often awakens us out of the dream of material sense, makes us conscious again of what we owe to God and to ourselves, and sooner or later teaches us to see that in reality there is no other than God's way. God did not create the suffering or the barbed wire. They do not belong to the eternal, unchanging things of God, and God is no more responsible for them than mathematics is responsible for the mistakes which a pupil makes in a problem. A better knowledge of mathematics gradually does away with the possibility of making mistakes, and what is true in this is in a much higher degree true of the Science of Spirit. Christian Science finds the solution to the problem by making its adherents more and more conscious of God's allness and by teaching them to acknowledge no opposite.

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