Article August 9, 1924 Issue

In your paper there was an announcement of a lecture...

Theodore Burkhart,—Corvallis

Gazette Times

In your paper there was an announcement of a lecture to be given by a returned missionary on the subject, "There Thousand Years of Hinduism," in which the statement was made that "for two thousand years India has given to the world her false religions, among which are Christian Science, theosophy," et cetera.

That is untrue so far as Christian Science is concerned; for Christian Science is not a false religion, nor did it originate in the land of the Hindu. If Christian Science is to be considered a false religion, so also must Christianity; but that which is capable of scientific proof cannot rightly be branded as false. It is an established and well-known fact that Christian Science was discovered in New England by its Founder, Mary Baker Eddy. India had nothing whatever to do with its discovery; neither is there anything in Hinduism out of which Christian Science could be evolved. "Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" To think that Christian Science could have emanated from India is to misunderstand both Christianity and its modern rediscovery. Between Christian Science and the religion of the Hindu "is a great gulf fixed." There is no magic or occultism, no hypnotism or materialism, in the teachings and practice of Christian Science, which is restoring, in its entirety, primitive Christianity as founded, taught, and practiced by Christ Jesus. The purely spiritual metaphysics of this Science of Christianity fundamentally differentiates it from all other systems of religion and methods of healing. In the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy tells of her discovery and how she later won her way "to absolute conclusions through divine revelation, reason, and demonstration" (p. 109). On page 126 she says: "I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority. I have had no other guide in 'the straight and narrow way' of Truth."