Article April 15, 1922 Issue

Your correspondent admits that he has read Mrs. Eddy's...

C. R. Hewson—Derbyshire, England

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Your correspondent admits that he has read Mrs. Eddy's works on Christian Science and finds them increasingly unintelligible; and yet he begins by denouncing as anti-Christian, and warning people against, that which he does not himself understand. This was precisely the attitude adopted in Jesus' time by the Pharisees and Sadducees, who understood least of all his teachings. This was because they were so steeped in the more material creeds and ceremonies of the Mosaic law that they were totally unable to discern the Christ when presented to them.

Surely one must admit that the Founder and greatest teacher of Christianity was Jesus the Christ, and throughout all ages that which most nearly follows his teachings and example, irrespective of human creeds, has the best right to be termed Christian. I have yet to discover in the teaching of the apostles anything which Jesus did not teach; and, more than that, they continued to prove their understanding of his teaching by doing the works which Jesus said should follow all "them that believe," healing the sick and casting out devils. Jesus promulgated no creed or doctrine as an article of faith, and in submitting his supreme and supremely simple test of "works" he made no reservations of time or period, but throughout all time the great test of Christianity was to be the ability to follow the example of the Master by doing his works. Your correspondent narrows down his concept of Christianity and condemns as anti-Christian all that does not coincide with the doctrines of what he asserts to be "the faith once delivered to the saints." The theology which is based entirely upon the acceptance of certain creeds and doctrines naturally objects to Jesus' concept of Christianity and prefers to consider the obligation to heal the sick to have been removed about the third century after Christ. As a matter of fact it was just at this time, at the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Constantine, that creeds and ritual began to enter into the early church, and with the entrance of materialism the pure Christianity of Jesus went out, and along with it, the ability to heal the sick by spiritual means. The first of these creeds, the Nicene, was promulgated in the year 325 a. d., at the instigation of Constantine himself, and from that time Christianity entered upon what are known as the Dark Ages, when it seemed all but lost except at rare intervals.

All that Mrs. Eddy has done is to wrest Christianity from its materialism, and to reestablish it upon the spiritual teaching of Jesus and his apostles. Jesus and, in our own day, Mrs. Eddy have placed Christianity forever beyond argument by insisting that "by their fruits ye shall know them," and therefore is Christianity truly scientific because capable of demonstration by all who will put aside pride of opinion and accept this teaching with the humility of little children.

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