Article May 27, 1922 Issue

I am sure it has not escaped your readers' observation...

J. N. Van Patten

Orange (Calif.) News

I am sure it has not escaped your readers' observation that the revivalist, reported in your columns as characterizing Christian Science a "nothing," very significantly ignores evidence which effectually disproves his assertion; namely, the fruits or works of this Science. For Christian Science brings forth a very tangible "something"—health, supply, happiness, all good—and his disregard for this generally accepted fact repudiates Christendom's only authority,—the Bible, with its standard established by Christ Jesus, "Ye shall know them by their fruits."

This contradiction of his professed acceptance of the Bible places him in another awkward position when the correct teachings of Christian Science are found to be sustained by the Scriptures. For example, in referring to the Adam-man he reads, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return," and again, "He fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." Here, a so-called material man is not only reduced to dust, a symbol of nothingness, but is also dispossessed of that doubtful entity and classified as a shadow, without any continuance whatsoever.

Now Christian Science concurs with this; but it does not say to the individual, You are that dust or shadow man, or you are nothing, as the critic avers. On the contrary, it shows him that he is God's image and likeness,—spiritual, not material,—as the record in the first chapter of Genesis sets forth; and that the dust and shadow man, or the belief of life, truth, intelligence, and substance in matter, is not his real being but a counterfeit, to be put off as quickly as possible. Then it proceeds to help him by healing the worst manifestations of this falsity,—sin, sickness, poverty, all the human ills and woes. And further, this healing initiates a spiritualization of thought which does not destroy the individual's sense of existence, but accomplishes his regeneration after the manner approved by Paul,—"Not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life."

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