Article January 19, 1924 Issue

There is nothing in Christian Science teaching and practice...

W. Stuart Booth, Committee on Publication for the State of Colorado,—Colorado Springs

Evening Telegraph

There is nothing in Christian Science teaching and practice which can be classed under the head of mysticism or superstition. Quite the contrary is true, because the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, contains the simple, exact, complete, understandable, and provable rules of applied Christianity, which were fully verified in the work of Christ Jesus and his early followers. It is true that by the materially-minded men of to-day, as of the first century, the healings wrought by the master Christian and his disciples are regarded as mysterious and supernatural, whereas they were but evidences of the spiritual understanding and application of God's immutable, universal law of harmony and perfection. Jesus said that he came to do the will of the Father. That God's will or law is available to all is shown by Jesus' promise that all who believe on (understand) him shall do the same works that he did, and also by the fact that up to about the third century of the Christian era the sick were healed and in some instances the dead were restored to life by the prayers of the Christians.

On page 145 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "If there is any mystery in Christian healing, it is the mystery which godliness always presents to the ungodly,—the mystery always arising from ignorance of the laws of eternal and unerring Mind." On the next page we read: "The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry was faith in matter. The schools have rendered faith in drugs the fashion, rather than faith in Deity. By trusting matter to destroy its own discord, health and harmony have been sacrificed. Such systems are barren of the vitality of spiritual power, by which material sense is made the servant of Science and religion becomes Christlike."

It should not be thought, however, that Christian Scientists have a quarrel with doctors of medicine, even though some of them are critical and comdemnatory of Christian Science. We honor the better class of physicians for their honest, unselfish, and humane efforts to alleviate the ills of mankind. Their honesty of purpose has led a number of physicians to investigate Christian Science, and then to forsake their pills and plasters for scientific prayer.

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