Article February 27, 1926 Issue

Your issue of recent date contains the report of a lecture...

William K. Primrose,—Reading, Berkshire, England

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Your issue of recent date contains the report of a lecture by a clergyman on Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Many people who do not even profess to be Christian Scientists must have read the report of the lecture with feelings of regret, because few have not heard of the teachings of Christian Science and the great power for good which the Church of Christ, Scientist, is in the world to-day. From the report of the lecture it is very evident that the lecturer had obtained the material for it from hostile and very unreliable sources; but had he learned the true facts concerning the life and character of Mrs. Eddy, he would undoubtedly have portrayed her in a very different light from that in which he is reported to have done so. The lecturer stated, according to the report of the lecture, that the power which Christian Science used was the power of suggestion. Suggestion or mental manipulation by the influence or agency of the human or carnal mind has been known from time immemorial. On the other hand, the method of Christ Jesus, which is that of Christian Science, rested on that spiritual understanding of God and man's inseparable relation to Him which discerns that God, Spirit, is the only Mind, and that in reality, as that term is used in Christian Science, nothing exists apart from Mind and Mind's spiritual creation. It is this truth of being which is to-day, in Christian Science, healing the sick and reforming the sinner, and into it the so-called knowledge and the various processes of the human or carnal mind do not enter. Mrs. Eddy's whole life and purpose were devoted to the promulgation of the teachings of Christian Science; and her motive in establishing the church she founded was, "To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual of The Mother Church, p. 17). Had the lecturer perceived the divine basis on which the teachings and practice of Christian Science rest, he would have lectured feom a very different standpoint; but his failure to do this and his lack of acquaintance with facts have unfortunately resulted in his giving a lecture which was most inaccurate and unfair.