Article April 19, 1930 Issue

A clergyman of your city recently delivered a sermon...

Orwell Bradley Towne, Committee on Publication for the State of New York,

Afton Enterprise

A clergyman of your city recently delivered a sermon, published in the Bainbridge Republican, attacking Christian Science and making statements in regard to it which should, in the interests of fairness, be corrected. I would therefore appreciate the privilege of space in your paper for such correction.

The statement in the sermon that Mrs. Eddy "laid principal stress on healing and claimed there is no evil, no sin, no death," stops short of the teachings of Christian Science on this point. On page 150 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, states the situation exactly. She says: "The mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world."

Our friend's objection to the Christian Scientist's use of the word "Science" should be cleared up. Webster's dictionary definition of "Science" reads, in part, "Accumulated and accepted knowledge which has been systematized and formulated with reference to the discovery of general truths or the operation of general laws; knowledge classified and made available in work, life, or the search for truth." It might strengthen this definition if I added that science must be capable of proof. Systematized and formulated knowledge which can be proved by the results of its practical application to-day, as it was proved two thousand years ago, is not only scientific to-day, as then, but has been scientific throughout all time. The practical results of the application of a teaching constitute the only true test of the "Science" of that teaching.

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