Article December 24, 1927 Issue

Your correspondent in a recent issue states that "Christian Scientists...

Stanley M. Sydenham, Committee on Publication for Yorkshire, England,

Ilkley Gazette

Your correspondent in a recent issue states that "Christian Scientists rely not on the Bible, but on the Bible as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy, which is a very different thing." Mrs. Eddy has certainly interpreted some portions of the Scriptures, and in that part of the Christian Science textbook entitled "Key to the Scriptures" she sets forth "the proper reflection of God and the spiritual actuality of man, as given in the first chapter of Genesis," and "the history of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mortal" (p. 502) who is spoken of in subsequent chapters. In Chapter XVI she throws wonderful light upon verses in the tenth, twelfth, and twenty-first chapters of Revelation, and upon the twenty-third psalm; but in the main she has left the other portions of the Bible to the unfolding thought of the student.

From her early childhood Mrs. Eddy was very susceptible to spiritual intuitions, and was a deep student of the Bible; and the discovery of Christian Science was the culmination of years of search for Truth. When she was instantaneously healed of a condition deemed incurable by the physicians, through the perception of the spiritual meaning of a Bible passage, she had unmistakable proof that she had indeed touched the hem of the garment of Truth; and from that moment her one desire was to give to the world that truth which she had proved makes free from sickness as well as sin. Your correspondent states: "If the words of the Bible are to be read in any way other than in the common everyday meaning of words, then any theory may be built up from them. And it is just because Christian Scientists . . . attach meanings to Bible words which those words do not bear in everyday language, that they are able to claim a 'Biblical' ground for their teachings." From this I take it that your correspondent means that the Bible in its entirety must be literally interpreted. It is not possible in the limits of a letter to go very fully into this question; but to show how very illogical is this attitude let us take the second commandment as given to Moses.

The literal interpretation of this commandment is that God meets hate with hate; and yet the Apostle John declares that "God is love." It is because of the literal translation of this commandment that the law of heredity has been claimed to have Biblical authority. The literal interpretation of the Bible has certainly in this instance made the forces of evil seem very real. What, then, is the remedy? It is the spiritual interpretation or perception of this commandment. So long as men and women believe that the real creation is material, and that man is the father of man, they will be victims themselves, and will victimize their children, even "unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me"—that is, do not understand their relationship to Spirit; but the moment any individual turns from the belief of life in matter or material existence, to God as the Father and the Mother of all that truly exists, and understands his sonship with God, then he will in effect hear the Father say, "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine"—that is, health, strength, freedom, and joy belong to you; and the curse, which is the outcome of false belief about God and man, will disappear.

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