Article August 15, 1925 Issue

The letter from your correspondent of last week gives...

Miss Evelyn L. Webb, Committee on Publication for County Antrim, Ireland,—Belfast

Witness

The letter from your correspondent of last week gives a very fair answer to a statement that Christian Science does not heal: also the article from a clergyman in Edinburgh, published in your paper, which the clergyman praises, though making an attack on the Christian Science church, assures us that Christian Science has "given comfort, gracious healing, and a new glad outlook to many thousands of people in every land." The critic's affirming that Christian Science does not heal, or one's affirming that it does, is not proof either way. But it has been the experience of the Christian Science movement that attacks such as this have generally had the effect of bringing thoughtful people to the Christian Science church to ascertain for themselves what Christian Science really does teach, and they have then been able to prove for themselves whether Christian Science heals and whether it is in accord with the Scriptures. It was in this way that the writer became interested. The gentleman says that I quoted John 8:40 for authority in saying Jesus was a mere man. As a matter of fact Christian Scientists do not so refer to Christ Jesus. Mrs. Eddy's statement, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 54), which was quoted,—namely, her reference to Christ Jesus as "... that Godlike and glorified man, ..." is a very different thing from the construction your correspondent puts upon this reference, and this defense was made in quoting Jesus' own words. No remarks of my own were made on the subject, nor did I say that Jesus was not God. His own words were left to speak for themselves. So it must be Jesus' words the cirtic is disturbed about. If our critic had lived in the days of Paul he might have found it necessary to rebuke Paul for referring to Jesus as the man, Christ Jesus. It was Jesus who, in rebuking the young ruler, said, "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is God."

One wonders sometimes whether it is because Christian Scientists never ask outside their own denomination for support of their charitable enterprises, that they have often been accused of uncharitableness; or is it because they try to obey the injunction not to let the right hand know what the left hand doeth? The critic challenges me to publish what the Christian Science church has done for the poor and suffering in our own country and abroad. It ill becomes a Christian church to boast of its benevolence. However, in the interest of the church which has been assailed it is but just to say that the relief work done, and being done, by the Christian Science church among the poor and suffering throughout the world, will compare very favorably with that of any other Christian denomination. Very extensive relief work has been carried on by the Christian Science church in countries stricken by the war, and among the persecuted Armenians; also in Japan at the time of the recent earthquake; and, to bring it nearer home, by means of a fund raised by the Christian Science church at the time of the war to help those who were in distress owing to the war, over £500 of which was distributed in Ulster alone, without reference to creed, and this besides what was spent on the soldiers in maintaining rest rooms, and such like, both in the war zone and also at home.

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