Editorial August 30, 1924 Issue

Scientific Demonstration

Albert F. Gilmore

The student of the four gospels can scarcely fail to be impressed with the conclusiveness of Christ Jesus' proof of God's ever-presence, of His availability and power to meet the needs of mortals. Jesus' demonstrations met a great variety of human wants, ranging all the way from the lack of sufficient wine at a marriage feast to the raising of the so-called dead, and even to the resurrection of his own body after his enemies thought they had destroyed his life. He healed all the woes common to mankind, supplied every lack, thereby proving that God is supreme, infinite, All. If we examine, step by step and item by item, the details of the Master's teaching, we shall find no place where he advised the acceptance of materiality as reality, or of so-called physical law in place of divine law. He literally gave no power to the claims of the material universe, that is, to error; and he disregarded its laws whenever they lay across the way which he wished to traverse in the fulfillment of his mission. He was, indeed, the great Exemplar of scientific demonstration, proving the power of Spirit to be supreme under all conditions.

The student of Mrs. Eddy's teachings learns that by demonstration alone does he gain the proofs of spiritual power which entitle him to the name Christian Scientist. Our Leader is definite in her statements regarding this. On page 345 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she says, "One who understands Christian Science can heal the sick on the divine Principle of Christian Science, and this practical proof is the only feasible evidence that one does understand this Science." How conclusive are her words! By demonstration alone does one prove his position spiritually. The author of the book "Abraham Lincoln: A Man of God" states that the great Emancipator became fully convinced in his youth that demonstrable knowledge was necessary to enable him to succeed. For this reason, it is said, he studied Euclid until he could state and prove every proposition contained in that book. Thus he came to know what it meant to prove his way.

Christian Scientists are sometimes tempted to confine their applications of spiritual law to the healing of physical infirmities or of some other acute form of lack; they do not apply spiritual truth to all the experiences of life in the degree that Christ Jesus and our revered Leader did. Satisfied, apparently, to limit their demonstrations to what they deem the more serious problems of life, they pursue the accustomed ways of humanity in many of their minor affairs. It were as though they forgot the omnipotence and omnipresence of God, thereby limiting "the Holy One of Israel" in His capacity to meet all the needs of mankind.

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