Article July 25, 1925 Issue

Elevation versus Condemnation

HENDRIK JAN DE LANGE

Mankind's chief task is to elevate spiritually, not to condemn. Happiness cannot be won on any other basis. Salvation is reached only along the road of spiritual elevation. Success in life is not lasting, or even beneficial, unless it be based on that loving attitude which sees man as God's image and likeness,—pure, holy, and perfect. So much the more is this necessary for success in healing the sick, reforming the sinner, and raising the dead, as Jesus exhorted his followers to do.

It is very significant that in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy the chapter "Christian Science Practice" opens with a summary of the touching New Testament story which tells of the anointing of Jesus' feet by Mary Magdalene, after she had washed them with tears of repentance. Jesus emphasized to his host and the other guests, who had been regarding this scene with a sense of condemnation and criticism, the lesson that their mental attitude could never heal the sick and the sinning. Jesus' compassionate love, elevating the woman, showed her real status as God's child, unfallen and upright, and wrought the healing. Thus Jesus could say to her, "Thy sins are forgiven."

In the chapter "Recapitulation" in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy further elucidates this most vital point in the healing work of the Christian Science practitioner. On pages 476 and 477 we have those words so familiar to the student of Christian Science: "Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy." Furthermore, our Leader shows that the Christian Science movement is based on the same groundwork as that on which the Way-shower built his constructive mission, when she says (ibid., p. 583), "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."

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