Article October 31, 1925 Issue

In a recent issue of the Times is an interesting exposition...

George C. Palmer, Committee on Publication for the Province of Saskatchewan, Canada,—Moose Jaw

Times Morning Herald

In a recent issue of the Times is an interesting exposition of a friend's philosophical views upon the subject of mind and matter. As, however, the two opposing factions in the argument are materialism and spiritualism, and Christian Science is drawn into the discussion under the latter heading, will you kindly permit me space to reply?

In the first place, an understanding of Christian Science makes it immediately impossible to confound or unite it with spiritualism. To-day, a critic is rarely found urging any similarity between these two opposing systems, for the sufficient reason that there is none, as even a cursory consideration of Mrs. Eddy's book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," will make evident. When the speaker finds it wise to agree with Huxley, who writes of the "absurdity of imagining that we know anything about spirit," we arrive at a brotherly difference, because the Christian Scientist follows Christ Jesus' teaching according to John—that God is Spirit. Therefore, to know nothing of Spirit would be to be shut out from the presence of God, and be denied His love.

May I ask, without presumption, if the sentence, "Christ admitted the fact of pain and evil and struggle in life, and the whole structure of science is built up on the foundation of observation and sense experience," might be altered to read: "Christ Jesus admitted the existence of pain and evil and struggle in human experience, because the whole structure of materialism is built up on the foundation of sense-testimony"? I ask this because the Bible draws such a clear line of demarcation between Life that is God and the so-called life that is but an expression of sense-testimony, as the following from I John show: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves;" "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin ... and he cannot sin." The speaker uses the familiar illustration of the rising and setting of the sun, and knows at the same time that to trust sense-testimony is impossible; for it is mistaken. The sun does not rise; it is relatively stationary. Christian Science teaches that "spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God" (Science and Health, p. 209). It holds that spiritual sense is reliable, but that, even as the above illustration proves, a misguided, mortal, or material sense will invariably lead astray.

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