Article February 10, 1923 Issue

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"...

Stanley M. Sydenham, Committee on Publication for Yorkshire, England,—Sheffield

Yorkshire Telegraph and Star

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 335), Mrs. Eddy writes: "Reality is spiritual, harmonious, immutable, immortal, divine, eternal. Nothing unspiritual can be real, harmonious, or eternal. Sin, sickness, and mortality are the suppositional antipodes of Spirit, and must be contradictions of reality." Mrs. Eddy knew, as her students do to-day, that to human belief disease seems a reality. That is why she wrote on page 460 of the textbook: "Sickness is neither imaginary nor unreal,—that is, to the frightened, false sense of the patient. Sickness is more than fancy; it is solid conviction. It is therefore to be dealt with through right apprehension of the truth of being." Christ Jesus proved that it was only a false belief by destroying it "through right apprehension of the truth of being." If it were real, it could not be destroyed. The Christian Science textbook contains a chapter of thirty-eight pages entitled "Atonement and Eucharist." The word "atonement" is Elizabethan, and simply means to make as one. Christ Jesus revealed man's oneness with the Father; and to the extent that this oneness is understood, it can be proved in the overcoming of all that is unlike God—that is, in the destruction of sin, disease, and death. It is because Christian Scientists understand, in some measure, the real meaning of atonement,—the real man's unity with God,—that they are so successful in the healing of "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people."

Christian Scientists accept without question the Biblical statement, "And God saw every thing that he had made, and behold, it was very good." To Christian Scientists real creation, including man, is spiritual and good. It is only the false human sense of God's creation which is affected by the beliefs of sin, disease, and death; and it is only the spiritual understanding of God and His creation which can destroy these false human beliefs. The strength of a religious movement should not be gauged by numbers, but by the works of its individual members. Our Master's test was, "Ye shall know them by their fruits." There is no complete agreement among the different denominations as to what Christianity is, or on the various doctrinal theories. Creeds and dogmas are losing their hold upon the people, because they fail to meet the dire needs of mankind. The teaching that reveals most of God to mankind; the teaching that shows most clearly the best way to "work out your own salvation;" the teaching that makes plain the way to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus;" the teaching that shows how the command of Jesus to preach the gospel and to heal the sick (which also means preaching the gospel by healing the sick) can be obeyed: that is the teaching which is lifting up the Christ; and it will draw all men unto it. Let us be broad-minded enough, tolerant enough, loving enough, to give to all those who are striving to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth credit for right endeavor, even if their views do not coincide with our own! Let us also say, as did Abram unto Lot, "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee, and between my herdmen and thy herdmen; for we be brethren."

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In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"...

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