Article December 19, 1925 Issue

Christian Scientists would agree with the concluding lines...

J. Ormiston Thomson, Committee on Publication for Victoria, Australia,—Mansfield

Courier

Christian Scientists would agree with the concluding lines of a correspondent's letter in your recent issue, namely, that there is room enough for all, irrespective of creed, who are working for the good of mankind. Mrs. Eddy in "Unity of Good" (p. 5) enjoins her students to "respect the rights of conscience and the liberty of the sons of God;" and the last thing we desire is to enter into any controversy respecting Christian Science and spiritualism. It is doubtless generally understood that there is a difference between the two, and Mrs. Eddy emphasizes this in the chapter "Christian Science versus Spiritualism" in her book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Your correspondent, in his courteous letter, considers it is possible that there is more in common between Christian Science and spiritualism than we realize. He instances in particular that spiritualism teaches that "God is Spirit, and we being children of one Father are therefore parts of the One Great Spirit." He then states that Christian Scientists cannot deny that each spiritual part of the Godhead is individualized in every personage. This we do deny, for it is quite opposed to the teaching of Christian Science; and that there may be no question as to personal opinion we would, with your kind permission, quote briefly from Science and Health, the textbook of Christian Science, to which we have already referred. On pages 334 and 335 we read: "Spirit being God, there is but one Spirit, for there can be but one infinite and therefore one God. There are neither spirits many nor gods many. There is no evil in Spirit, because God is Spirit. The theory, that Spirit is distinct from matter but must pass through it, or into it, to be individualized, would reduce God to dependency on matter, and establish a basis for pantheism." And on page 336 we read: "God is indivisible. A portion of God could not enter man; neither could God's fulness be reflected by a single man, else God would be manifestly finite, lose the deific character, and become less than God. Allness is the measure of the infinite, and nothing less can express God."

We only wish to refer to one further point—the statement regarding Mrs. Eddy's connection with spiritualism. It is true that Mrs. Eddy lived in the first half of the nineteenth century, when spiritualism, mesmerism, and animal magnetism were being widely discussed, but to connect her life seriously at any period with spiritualism is to make use of unwarrantable conjecture.

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