Article July 26, 1930 Issue

In a sermon reported in your columns on February 7, a...

Francis Lyster Jandron, Committee on Publication for the State of Michigan,—Houghton

Gazette

In a sermon reported in your columns on February 7, a clergyman professes to see a conflict between the teachings of Christian Science and those of Christ Jesus, and exemplifies his views by a discussion of the raising of Lazarus. I am glad to assure your readers that there is no such conflict as he imagines, because Christian Scientists accept literally the gospel account of the raising of Lazarus, as well as the Bible narratives of the life and teachings of our Lord.

Christian Scientists are earnestly trying in a humble way to gain and to apply the exalted spiritual understanding of God's power which enabled the Master to raise Lazarus. They are striving to acknowledge God as the only power, and to reject the opposite claim that evil also has power in the form of sickness, sin, or death. It was belief in a so-called power of evil, in other words, belief in mortality, which condemned Lazarus to die. It was Jesus' refusal to consent to such a power which enabled him to utilize the divine life-giving power by which Lazarus was raised. Obviously, Lazarus' awakening must have been accompanied by the realization that he was actually alive and not dead; and it is fair to conclude that Lazarus was able to perceive also that death was far from being the inevitable act which it is generally supposed to be.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 493, 494), Mrs. Eddy sums up the situation very clearly and logically when she says: "If Jesus awakened Lazarus from the dream, illusion, of death, this proved that the Christ could improve on a false sense. Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?"

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