Article July 15, 1922 Issue

When a writer bases his criticisms on sentences torn from...

Kate E. Andreae, Committee on Publication for Sussex County,—Bexhill-on-Sea, England

Bexhill Observer

When a writer bases his criticisms on sentences torn from their context, it is not possible for him to give his readers a right impression of the subject. The teachings of Christian Science make it plain that the stronghold of sin, disease, and death lies in the belief that they are ordained of God. Evil has too long sought to make Him responsible for their existence, and such a belief has not lessened them throughout the centuries, nor can it ever do so. Christian Science is hammering mighty blows at this false concept of God, which is slowly but surely losing its hold on mankind. Christian Scientists understand that God does not send these evils upon man, nor does He permit them; and when this is understood, sin, disease, and suffering, which appeared so real and insurmountable to the human mind, are seen to lose the substance and power they were supposed to possess and yield up their despotism to Christ's tender, unfailing love and power. Certainly he who destroyed all manner of disease and sin among the people could never have given evil power or reality. He looked unswervingly to the everlasting creator, the Father of all, as "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and knew that from this source, the one great and only cause, nothing but good could emanate. His clear, pure vision perceived man as God created him, and thus the pains and woes of a false sense were destroyed by this wonderful upholder of God's creation, of His laws and their operation.

Christian Science is no new doctrine, but the discovery of the Principle and rules of Christianity as understood and demonstrated by the Master, and by the early Christians. Christian Scientists do not employ the agents of the human mind, will-power, or hypnotism, to heal the sick. They seek to gain that Mind which was in Christ Jesus, for they know that it is only by so doing that the healing works can be accomplished.

Finally, will you allow me to state that nowhere in her writings does Mrs. Eddy say that "the atonement is not true, it is man-made." Christian Scientists believe in the atonement. It is more to them than ever before, and teaches them man's redemption from disease and suffering as well as from sin. The reference which the critic so hopelessly misquoted is on page 23 of the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," by Mary Baker Eddy: "That God's wrath should be vented upon His beloved Son, is divinely unnatural. Such a theory is man-made." And on page 19 she writes: "Every pang of repentance and suffering, every effort for reform, every good thought and deed, will help us to understand Jesus' atonement for sin and aid its efficacy; but if the sinner continues to pray and repent, sin and be sorry, he has little part in the atonement,—in the at-one-ment with God,—for he lacks the practical repentance, which reforms the heart enables man to do the will of wisdom."

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July 15, 1922
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