Electrical transcription No. 5: Interview with Reverend Andrew J. Graham

From time to time clergymen have investigated Christian Science. Some have fully accepted it and become members of the Christian Science church. Among these is the Reverend Andrew J. Graham, now a teacher of Christian Science and for a number of years a member of The Board of Lectureship of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.

At the invitation of The Christian Science Board of Directors, Mr. Graham has recorded an interview in which he speaks of the experiences which led him to become a Christian Scientist. To this interview you are now invited to listen.

Question : Mr. Graham, it is well known that before accepting Christian Science you were a clergyman, active in the work of your denomination. Would you care to tell us something of that phase of your career?

Answer : Gladly. At the age of twenty-one I entered the ministry of a church whose public services are taken very largely from the Bible. For thirty-four consecutive years, in conducting its public worship, I was becoming more and more familiar with the content of the Old and New Testaments. I mention this because the Bible is the foundation book of Christian Science. And I am very grateful to that other church through whose ministry I became so familiar with, at least, the letter of the Bible.

Question : That's rather strong emphasis you place on the "letter of the Bible." Did you mean to emphasize this?

Answer : Well, yes, I did mean to emphasize it a little, for although a Bible student for many years, and with scores of books about the Bible in my library, I had never perceived the all-inclusive, fundamental, spiritual content of the Scriptures until my healing in Christian Science and my perusal of Mrs. Eddy's book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." This new understanding of the Bible was accompanied by such convincing evidence of the power of the Scriptures, as made available through Christian Science, that I was irresistibly drawn out of my old church relationship.

Question : But, Mr. Graham, you have just spoken of "convincing evidence." Do you mean to say that we humans may obtain actual proof of the power of God?

Answer : Indeed I do; but by "convincing evidence" I referred more especially to physical healing as wrought through Christian Science. After three years of sickness, weariness, fear, and discouragement, and after trying many material remedies with no beneficial results, I was instantaneously released from mental distress and physical pain through Christian Science. This experience radically changed my view of God and man, Jesus and the Christ, salvation and heaven, sin, sickness, death, and hell. This is the evidence which convinced me that Christian Science is of God.

Question : And did you voluntarily seek the aid of Christian Science?

Answer : Far from it, for I then believed it to be the cult of a woman of worldly ambition and to be contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I had talked against it and preached against it again and again. My antagonism to this truth was too obstinate to admit of personal persuasion. It must have been our Father in heaven whose tenderness persuasively drew me against my will into a Christian Science Reading Room, where I asked for and through which I received help.

Question : But didn't you have many a theological struggle while changing from your former church to Christian Science?

Answer : No, I had no mental or theological struggles. The parting was easy. I had found "the pearl of great price," and detachment from wrong ideas about God and man was as painless as the loosing of an icicle at the approach of an April sun.

Question : Do you think this has been the experience of other clergymen who have accepted Christian Science?

Answer : I do not know. This, however, may be said: that of the many ministers of different Christian bodies who have consulted me about Christian Science during the past twenty-five years, nearly all have been deterred from going forward by three phases of fear, that is, financial need, lack of a position, or loss of friends. This is not said in condemnation of their hesitancy, but as a simple statement of fact.

Question : Mr. Graham, what attitude of thought do you consider essential to those persons who are desirous of identifying themselves with the Christian Science movement?

Answer : That is much easier to ask than to answer. Each case is individual, but an open, humble, teachable thought is absolutely essential. One must begin at the bottom to lay a new foundation. This is no easy matter, but it must be done in order to meet with any measure of success as a Christian Scientist.

Question : Yes, that's true of most endeavors; it does pay to begin at the bottom. But how would you apply that to investigating Christian Science?

Answer : Please bear with me if my answer seems hard to understand, but it is the way I had to work it out for myself and I am unable to state it more simply. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science and the author of its textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” writes in that volume, “For right reasoning there should be but one fact before the thought, namely, spiritual existence.” So you see, my friend, no matter how minute, no matter how great may be the point to be settled, reasoning concerning any point should start by recognizing the eternal fact that God is Spirit, and therefore man is spiritual; that God being Spirit, the only creator, and like always producing like, everything that is really created is spiritual. Matter is unsubstantial—a temporary belief. Such teaching strikes at the very root of all prevalent theological beliefs concerning man and the universe. This is why a new foundation for thought must be laid in order to understand and accept Christian Science.

Question : But, granted a clergyman lays such a foundation, would you say that he is likely to make a better practitioner in Christian Science than would a clerk who is a non-college man?

Answer : Not unless the clergyman is more spiritually minded, teachable, humble, and loving than the clerk. The power in Christian Science is not exercised through academics. The truth about God and man is a revelation, not an acquirement, and it finds a lodging place in that consciousness only which has expelled much of conceit and self-sufficiency. You will recall that even Jesus said, “I can of mine own self do nothing;” and again, “The Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” In referring to healing, Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health that “the human mind alone suffers, is sick, and that the divine Mind alone heals.”

Question : But, such teaching is somewhat at variance with the teaching of your old church. As a matter of fact, you must have found many differences.

Answer : Yes, I found many. For instance, it became clear to me after my healing that Christ is not a person, but the impersonal, unceasing, unlimited activity of God; or as Mrs. Eddy gives the definition in Science and Health: “Christ . The divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error.” Now in harmony with this definition I was released from attributing deity to the personal Jesus, who said to his followers on one occasion, “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” This distinction between the personal Jesus and the Christ explains many passages in the earlier Scriptures, annihilates Christian idolatry, reconciles numerous apparent contradictions in the Bible, and unites in one bond the Old Testament and the New Testament. I found another difference to be the matter of sermons. In Christian Science churches the sermons are entirely impersonal, being citations from the Bible and from the Christian Science textbook. The burden of these sermons is, God alone governs man, and the only attacks these sermons ever make are attacks on sickness and sin. In Christian Science services one is always certain of hearing in the Lesson-Sermon the spiritual teaching of the Bible made plainer. Therefore, I feel justified in saying that the intelligent use of the Bible is a definite mark of the genuine Christian Scientist. To him the Bible is the great Book as certainly as it was to Mrs. Eddy. She tells us that in the search for truth the Bible was her only textbook. To the earnest Christian Scientist Mrs. Eddy's book Science and Health reveals the spiritual treasures of the Holy Bible. Thus does she write in Science and Health: “The Scriptures are very sacred. Our aim must be to have them understood spiritually, for only by this understanding can truth be gained.… It is this spiritual perception of Scripture, which lifts humanity out of disease and death and inspires faith.”

Question : That is all most interesting, Mr. Graham; but I will not ask you to outline further differences, because there are yet two questions we would like to have you answer. First: What did you think of Mrs. Eddy personally?

Answer : I never saw Mrs. Eddy in the flesh, but for two years after my healing I could not mention Mrs. Eddy's name without its bringing tears of gratitude to my eyes. No one but myself can ever know what good Mrs. Eddy has brought to me through her revelation of Truth and Love. And I know that that revelation can bring to all who are sick and sinful the same comfort wherewith it has comforted me.

Question : And now for my final question: Mr. Graham, your reference a moment ago to your own physical healing in Christian Science must have made many listeners want to hear more details. Won't you devote the remainder of our time to describing that important event in your life?

Answer : Without any acquaintance with Mrs. Eddy or understanding of her teaching, I, as a clergyman, in private and in public, repeatedly assailed both, from a mistaken sense of duty. For over forty years I had been a member of one orthodox Christian church, and during thirty-four of these years, in its ministry, serving it with a zeal born of conviction. Early in 1906 I found myself unable adequately to perform the duties of the large parish of which I had charge. Nervousness, irritation, sleeplessness, stomach and bowel trouble, pain in head, spine, and right side, and an ever-present, horrible fear, made existence almost unbearable. Up to the morning of August 14, 1911, I had never thought of seeking or resorting to Christian Science, had never been advised to do so, nor had I read a word in the Christian Science textbook or in any other reliable literature on the subject. But on that morning, as I walked wearily along Cornmarket Street in Oxford, England, weak and pained in body, and distressed in thought, my attention was attracted to a sign at the entrance to a Christian Science Reading Room. The loving power of God, greater than that of my stubborn will, drew me within, where I asked for help. This resulted in my receiving a treatment in Christian Science, with a recommendation that I read Mrs. Eddy's book, Science and Health. After two hours I opened the volume and read these words: “The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love.” As I read, my heart melted, tears flowed, and I said to myself: the woman who wrote those words must have lived near to God, and I have been unjust all these years in thinking and talking about her as I have. When this honest confession was made, my healing came instantly. I realized that a remarkable change, involving physical, mental, moral, and spiritual conditions, had taken place in my consciousness. I read in that book continuously for four hours. There was no excitement; on the contrary a spirit of calmness and peace. In a moment I had been healed of years of physical distress and mental anguish. At the time of this experience, many people and some friends thought I was old enough and sick enough to die. Since then twenty-five years have passed and none of those old physical symptoms have reappeared; and during this period not once have I doubted that Christian Science is the absolute truth about God and man, and that it heals sickness and sin as its loving appeal meets with individual response.

You have been listening to an interview with the Reverend Andrew J. Graham, a teacher of Christian Science. This interview is authorized by The Christian Science Board of Directors. Should you desire further information about Christian Science you may write directly to The Christian Science Board of Directors, Boston, Massachusetts, or to the station to which you are now listening. This program has come to you through the facilities of the World Broadcasting System.