It
is very clear that one of the most important religious movements of modern times has resulted from the study of the Bible in connection with the passages from Science and Health which, together with Scriptural selections, constitute their Lesson-Sermons.
Students of English history are not surprised to learn that the chief political leader of the British empire is President of the Association for the Advancement of Science, and so intelligent in this field of thought as to deliver, at the late meeting of the Association, in Cambridge, an address which "exhibited a splendid grasp of an exceedingly difficult as well as well as novel scientific subject.
The
general extension and rapid growth of the Christian Science movement has been such that we are always surprised when attention is called to some community wherein this truth has been known five, ten, or even fifteen years, but nevertheless the work is not found firmly established, and no perceptible gain is being made.
The
subtlest temptations often seem reserved for those who entertain the noblest ideals and who strive the most faithfully and disinterestedly for their attainment.
We
have been favored with a newspaper clipping which tells of a movement in England to form an association "within the Established Church to revive the teaching and practice of the early centuries concerning Divine healing.
The all-important consideration for humanity is how to reach the moral and intellectual stature which ever marks the Christ-man, and thus to realize the fulfilment of the Divine purpose.
It
is possible to conceive of a type of man that would be prompted by pride to exaggerate his own faults, but it would be difficult to think that a person of this character could be found occupying a position of religious prominence.
Some of those opponents of Christian Science who have criticised the healing accomplished by this system have done so upon the supposition that the persons who have been healed were victims of their own imagination, and that the serious nature of the ailments from which they suffered was not substantiated by the diagnoses of physicians.
Everything that goes to make up the sum-total of human experience must be subjected to the severest tests, and its worth or worthlessness decided by the results.