On page 497 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"...

William C. Brookes, Committee on Publication for Midlothian, Scotland,—Edinburgh

Protestant Advocate

On page 497 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy you will find that the first tenet of Christian Science is: "As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life." And as to fundamentals, Christian Science accepts, absolutely, all the commands of Christ Jesus, including the oft-neglected one, "Heal the sick." Obviously, healing the sick was a fundamental of Jesus' ministry; and as he said that "no man cometh unto the Father, but by me," it is necessary for us to make it our object to learn how he did his works of healing.

The first chapter of Genesis, together with the first five verses of the second chapter, gives us one account of creation, and the remainder of the second chapter gives us another account. The first of these accounts is spiritual, and the second material. Since God is Spirit, His creation must be spiritual; and this spiritual creation is held, in Christian Science, to include all that is real, eternal.

On page 11 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "Sin brings inevitable suffering." And on page 497 of the same book Mrs. Eddy says, "We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower." In endeavoring to reason on the subject of the reality or unreality of sin and sickness the followers of Jesus must keep before them the fact of God's omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, thus rejecting the belief that evil has power or presence.

Christian Science teaches that the wicked are punished by their wickedness until they give up the wickedness. In accordance with the words of Jesus, to be "great in the kingdom of heaven" is to "do and teach" the Beatitudes; and Christian Scientists are daily and hourly endeavoring to live up to this ideal. How then can it reasonably be said that they deny the existence of heaven when they are trying to do what Jesus said would make them "great in the kingdom of heaven"?

In the ordinary affairs of life a child does not have to petition its parents before it is supplied with its needs. Human parents do their utmost to supply those needs before they are asked. Obviously it must be infinitely less necessary to tell the almighty, all-knowing, and ever present Father our needs than it is to tell earthly parents of them. The Sermon on the Mount makes it plain that "all these things shall be added unto you," not because of petitions but because of obedience. The wicked can petition, but only the righteous obey. Christian Scientists are entirely satisfied to be known by their fruits.

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