Article July 24, 1926 Issue

The report in your recent issue of a sermon preached in...

Charles M. Shaw, Committee on Publication for Lancashire, England,—Rochdale

Observer

The report in your recent issue of a sermon preached in the Milton Congregational Church recently concludes with the question, "What has Christian Science which the church has not?" Please permit me to point out one feature of Christian Science which the church has not, namely, an understanding of prayer which renders it efficacious in healing sickness and disease, as well as in overcoming the everyday anxieties and difficulties. These results, be it said, are not the chief aim of Christian Science, but among its most obvious effects. Prayer, in Christian Science, is such an understanding of God and man as finds expression in affirmation of the reality of our divine sonship and of the spiritual facts of being, producing a real degree of reliance upon divine or spiritual law. For Christian Scientists hold that it is by the operation of spiritual law, not by the arbitrary acts of a personal Deity, that divine help is obtained for every human need.

The true Christian Scientist, then, does not use material means, such as herbs or drugs, and invoke the divine blessing upon them. He relies wholly upon his God-given understanding of the spiritual and divine. And so he dissents utterly from the preacher's statement, "Had Christ Jesus lived in this twentieth century with its environments and conditions, he would have used every means available for the health of body and soul." Such means, it is fair to suppose, include herbs, drugs, patent medicines, suggestion, hypnotism, as well as surgical operations. But the Christian Scientist does not think so, for the Master never mentioned herbs or surgery. He did say, "If I with the finger of God cast out devils, no doubt the kingdom of God is come upon you." He said further, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." Christian Science claims to have attained an understanding of what Matthew Arnold called "the method and secret of Jesus," and by this understanding alone is healing all manner of disease. Every real Christian Science healing is a spiritual achievement, and when the Scientist has broadened and deepened his understanding, more and better work will be done. At many other points Christian Science differs from those who are not Christian Scientists, but to describe these would need a treatise, not a letter.

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