Article March 30, 1929 Issue

For the sake of your readers, and in justice to Christian Science,...

M. S. Temple Hill, Committee on Publication for the Province of Quebec,—Montreal

Witness and Canadian Homestead

For the sake of your readers, and in justice to Christian Science, I should like to correct the very mistaken and misleading views poured forth by "One who loves the Witness." I give her credit for being sincere, and I trust she will concede the same in respect to us. 1. Far from denying the words of the Bible, as she claims we do, the very first tenet of Christian Science states our adherence to it. Christian Scientists are students of the Bible, and usually study it every day. To obtain the benefit of the Bible teachings, their spiritual meaning must be understood. I do not for one moment claim that none but Christian Scientists may understand their spiritual meaning, but I do claim that the teachings of Christian Science have given me, and thousands of others, a more spiritual understanding of the Bible, and have made it so much more real to us, especially the life, works, and teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ, that I find I can use and apply them on a scientific basis to my everyday life, and get results.

2. Prayer: Our critic asks, "What does Mrs. Eddy say about prayer?" The very first chapter in Science and Health is on Prayer. This chapter is admitted by many who are regular so-called orthodox church members to be one of the finest expositions on prayer ever written. 3. Our critic asks, "Who is she [Mrs. Eddy] that should dare to put before people such a teaching as she does?" I will content myself with the following extract from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Thirteenth Edition, 1926 (p. 919): "As has been remarked by intelligent observers, Mrs. Eddy's faith in God, her dependence on prayer, her obedience to Christ, her patience in adversity or opposition, and her combination of practical and spiritual wisdom, were exceptional in the most extraordinary degree. Beyond cavil or question, her life was an illustration and a demonstration of her proposition that 'prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind'" (Science and Health, p. 1).

4. Christian Scientists deny that sin is real in the sense that it is a part of God's creation. "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." God did not create sin, and there is no other creator than He. Jesus emphasized the falsity of sin or evil when he denounced the devil to the Pharisees in John 8:43, 44 thus: "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear myword. Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." Let me explain that in Christian Science the word "real" means eternal, and connotes spirituality; "unreal" means temporal, and connotes materiality. Christian Science teaches that the spiritual creation is the only real creation, and that in this creation sin or evil has no existence. So that when we deny the reality of sin and sickness, we do not mean they are not part of human experience, but that they will vanish away, proving themselves unreal, by the clear realization of the ever-presence of God, Spirit, here and now.

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