Article September 9, 1922 Issue

In this hour of individual thinking and expression, a critic,...

Pearl E. Reames, Committee on Publication for the State of Arkansas,—Monticello

Advance-Monticellonian

In this hour of individual thinking and expression, a critic, writing in a recent issue of your paper, of course is entitled to his concept of man as a mortal, complex, material organism; but in contending for the Adam-man, formed "of the dust of the ground," may one not infer that he has inadvertently overlooked the Elohistic or the true record of creation, wherein man is created in the image and likeness of God, with dominion over all the earth, forever untrammeled by any human hypotheses? And, too, is it not clear that the second or Jehovistic account of creation is recorded merely to awaken human thought to the false history of man in contradistinction to the true? The spiritual vision of Isaiah, the prophet, enabled him to write, for the benefit of all mankind, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" And centuries later Paul declared, "As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." If the true conception of man in the image of God, reflecting the divine likeness, results in physical, mental, and moral freedom, surely mankind would do well to grasp this reality of being, thus proving man's oneness with his Maker, and so be found spiritual and immortal. "Knowledge of this," Mrs. Eddy writes in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 521), "lifts man above the sod, above earth and its environments, to conscious spiritual harmony and eternal being."

Christian Science teaches the unreality of sin on the basis of the allness of God, infinite good. Starting with the premise that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good," does it not of necessity follow that evil, the opposite of good, must be proved nonexistent, since it is only a suppositional, material belief? Christian Science does not deny that sin obtains in the so-called minds of mortals as a false belief, and must therefore be met and mastered; hence the importance of heeding Paul's injunction: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." If sin, disease, and death were real and God-made, the question would naturally arise: How can they be destroyed? And, indeed, would it be wise even to attempt their destruction? Per contra, if sin and its malevolent concomitants, sickness, disease, and death, are found to be unreal and no part of God's creation, we have divine sanction for believing in the apostle's declaration to the Hebrews that the mission of Christ is to "destroy the works of the devil." Commenting on this passage, Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, p. 474): "Truth destroys falsity and error, for light and darkness cannot dwell together. Light extinguishes the darkness, and the Scripture declares that there is 'no night there.' To Truth there is no error,—all is Truth. To infinite Spirit there is no matter,—all is Spirit, divine Principle and its idea."

The claim of evil has its origin in the Adam-dream, endeavoring to becloud the understanding of God as infinite good; and that one is truly wise who can so magnify his consciousness with omnipotent, omnipresent good as to be able to keep the First Commandment, and thus demonstrate the powerlessness of evil by divesting it of all pretense of attractiveness, or of power as sin or as disease. Because Christian Science has fearlessly laid bare the unreality of evil and is pointing steadfastly to a higher and more exalted life and love, a great multitude, which "no man could number," healed of all manner of sickness, sin, sorrow, and distress, are to-day praising and glorifying God, and are realizing the grand import of the words of John, the Revelator: "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

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