In your issue of August 27 a minister of the gospel is...

Oscar R. Porter, Jr., Committee on Publication for the State of North Carolina,—Kinston

Daily Free Press

In your issue of August 27 a minister of the gospel is quoted as making certain statements concerning Christian Science which reveal a misapprehension of the subject. I respectfully ask space for correction.

Christian Science differs from what is termed faith-healing; for Christian Science relies upon a demonstrable understanding of God's law. Christian healing was practiced for about three hundred years after the time of Christ Jesus, and Christian Science is the reinstatement of "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual, p. 17). This religion teaches that the works of Jesus were not supernatural exhibitions of the divine power to heal, but the result of his understanding of and obedience to God, who is unchanging Love. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy occurs the statement (p. 140), "The Christian Science God is universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death."

In the first chapter of Genesis we read that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." Christian Science is rational for the reason that it accepts this statement and from it deduces the logical conclusion that since sin, disease, death, and inharmony of any kind are not good, they are not real. Science and Health states (p. 474): "Now Jesus came to destroy sin, sickness, and death; yet the Scriptures aver, 'I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.' Is it possible, then, to believe that the evils which Jesus lived to destroy are real or the offspring of the divine will?"

Although the different religious faiths vary in method, Christian Scientists are endeavoring to be obedient to the admonition of Mary Baker Eddy, "Love all Christian churches for the gospel's sake; and be exceedingly glad that the churches are united in purpose, if not in method, to close the war between flesh and Spirit, and to fight the good fight till God's will be witnessed and done on earth as in heaven" (Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 13).

People from all walks of life have been and are being benefited through the ministrations of Christian Science, and the adherents of this new-old religion rejoice that it is not limited to the healing of hysterical troubles, but that it heals functional and organic diseases as well. Many authenticated cases of healing, which had been pronounced incurable by the medical profession, are on file with The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston, Massachusetts.

Christ Jesus, the Way-shower, did not use drugs nor prescribe them for human use, neither did he resort to material methods for healing. Christian Scientists are endeavoring to be way-goers, followers of the Master by healing through the same spiritually mental method of the Way-shower.

Christian Scientists have the highest respect for the fairminded and better class of physicians who, to the best of their ability, are unselfishly laboring to alleviate the sufferings of humanity. Christian Scientists are endeavoring to emulate the example of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science when she said (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 4): "A genuine Christian Scientist loves protestant and Catholic, D.D. and M.D.,—loves all who love God, good; and he loves his enemies. It will be found that, instead of opposing, such an individual subserves the interests of both medical faculty and Christianity, and they thrive together, learning that Mind-power is good will towards men."

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