Article July 25, 1925 Issue

In your issue of recent date is a report of an address by...

John W. Harwood, Committee on Publication for Lancashire, England,—Manchester

City News

In your issue of recent date is a report of an address by a clergyman in which he states that between a gross materialism, on the one hand, and Christian Science, on the other, there was probably, he thought, not a pin to choose. Christian Science teaches that there is all the difference in the world between matter and Spirit; in fact, that there could not be greater opposites. Paul says, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other." The same difference exists between matter and Spirit as exists between evil and good, death and Life, error and Truth. Jesus said, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh [matter] profiteth nothing." His teaching was ever pointing to the necessity of knowing God, Spirit. His acts proved that so-called material laws are not God's laws, not real laws, for he annulled them all. He walked on the water, healed all manner of diseases, and raised the dead. And he accomplished all this by spiritual means, by the power of God, Spirit, never using or advising the use of material means. If the partnership of the material and spiritual were eternal, as the gentleman states, then salvation by spiritual means would be impossible. Matter, the basis of all evil and disease, would be an eternal partner with God, Spirit, the source and origin of all that is spiritual and good. This would indeed be a house divided against itself, and could not stand.

Most people now realize that matter is but a subjective state of the so-called carnal or mortal mind. Paul declared this false consciousness to be "enmity against God," and he further stated that "to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace." So, Christian Science is teaching, in accordance with the Scriptures, that what humanity needs is the Mind of Christ. If matter is as real and necessary as Spirit, why should the Bible be continually pointing out the necessity of overcoming the material world, the flesh, and the devil, and enjoining men to look not at the things that are seen, but at the things that are not seen? For, as Paul says, "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." It is to be hoped that your readers will recognize that there is indeed a difference between gross materialism and Christian Science.

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