Article March 2, 1929 Issue

To one familiar with the teachings of Christian Science,...

Kellogg Patton, Committee on Publication for the State of Wisconsin,—Wausau

Daily Record-Herald

To one familiar with the teachings of Christian Science, the incidents from Mark Twain's book related under the heading "Hits and Misses" in a recent issue of your paper might seem humorous from their very incongruity and misrepresentation of the teachings of Christian Science. Unfortunately, however, there are probably many readers of your paper who are not familiar enough with the teachings and practice of Christian Science to be aware of the wide divergence between some of the incidents quoted in your articles and these teachings. There is probably no phase of the teaching of Christian Science which has been more misrepresented and misunderstood than that of the denial of the reality of evil, which, in this particular article, is the denial of pain and sensation in matter. For these reasons I would appreciate space in your paper that I may endeavor correctly to set forth to your readers the teaching of Christian Science in this regard.

Those who have ridiculed and declared absurd the teachings of Christian Science in their denial of the reality of evil, pain, and sensation in matter, have done so from the standpoint of the material senses. Now, Christian Science does not deny that evil and pain seem very real to the material senses; nor does it deny that evil is a constituent part of human experience. Christian Science, therefore, does not deny evil from the standpoint of the material senses, but from a purely spiritual standpoint. It declares that God, good, is infinite Spirit or Mind; that therefore His universe, including man, is divinely mental or spiritual, and wholly good; and that this fact is apparent to the spiritual senses, which contradict the evidence of material sense. No Christian Science practitioner would ever tell anyone who had met with a severe accident that he had no pain, as quoted in your article; but such practitioner would know the truth about God and man and the spiritual universe, and to the extent that this truth was realized by the practitioner, the individual who had experienced the accident would be freed from pain, and healed.

It should be added in fairness to Mark Twain, and for the information of your readers, that the great humorist evidently changed his views regarding Christian Science in his later years, for his biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, relates that when he broached the subject of Christian Science to him, he found to his surprise that Mark Twain regarded Christian Science as "humanity's boon" and credited Mrs. Eddy with having "organized and made available a healing principle that for two thousand years has never been employed, except as the merest kind of guesswork."

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