Article May 14, 1927 Issue

A writer in a recent issue of your paper quotes the following...

Edgar McLeod, Committee on Publication for Northern California—Oakland

Nation

A writer in a recent issue of your paper quotes the following statement from page 289 of "Miscellaneous Writings" by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science: "Strong drink is unquestionably an evil, and evil cannot be used temperately: its slightest use is abuse; hence the only temperance is total abstinence." The critic implies that Mrs. Eddy's admission that strong drink is an evil is inconsistent with her teaching that evil is unreal. Critics of Christian Science frequently fail to differentiate between the truth and error. Christ Jesus did not ignore the temporary existence of the unreal conditions he came to destroy. The people of Palestine had from time immemorial believed in the reality of blindness, palsy, leprosy, and other discordant conditions. Through the application of spiritual law Christ Jesus destroyed these discords, thereby proving that they were no part of God's creation and therefore unreal in an absolute sense. Similarly, Christian Science has healed many persons of the use of intoxicants, thereby proving that the appetite for alcohol is false, unreal.

The great Master, who based his healing on the supremacy of Spirit, realizing the transitory and unreal nature of evil, commanded in his immortal Sermon on the Mount, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Surely this injunction would have been futile were imperfection real and eternal! Incidentally, may I submit that Mrs. Eddy's view regarding the use of strong drink has been overwhelmingly indorsed by one of the world's greatest and most progressive nations, which has outlawed the manufacture and sale of alcohol as a beverage?

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May 14, 1927
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