There
will be no objection upon the part of any exponent of modern ethics to the proposition that optimism is better than pessimism, that it is a power for good and leads to improved conditions; and all shades of Christian thought today will endorse and sustain the desirability of up-looking instead of down-looking.
It
is said that Goethe once remarked that it was easier to rebuke error than to speak truth, and so we often find the young student of Christian Science, in his first enthusiastic attempts to promote the welfare of his fellows, offering unsolicited counsel or even rebukes with a mistaken sense of doing good.
We long to leave something behind us which shall last, some influence of good which shall be transmitted through our children, some impress of character or action which shall endure and perpetuate itself.
It seems quite natural that mortals should think that those who hold a different view from that held by their own school, are poor, deluded people; and our critic is apparently no exception to the rule.
In my working relations with different churches for many years, I have found none more earnestly persistent in going about doing good "in his name" than the Christian Scientists; none more fully awake to the fact that, if they expect to reign with Christ, they must also share his cup of earthly sorrow, rejoicing if they may be counted worthy to suffer shame and persecution for his name; none who take more literally his whole command to "preach the gospel" and "heal the sick," well knowing that only in proportion to their right understanding of Truth can they cast out the evil in themselves and others.
For the past forty years Christian Science has been quietly healing sin and sickness, and its beneficiaries and adherents in all parts of the world witness unhesitatingly that they are better than they were before they came under the influence of its teaching.