It is sometimes charged that Christian Science rejects the Bible doctrine of sin, sickness, and death. This charge will bear serious and candid consideration. If this charge were so formulated that it would read: "Christian Science conception or interpretation of the Bible held by many on the subject of sin, sickness, and death," it would hit the mark, and we should assent to it. The difference between the two formulas is as wide as can well be imagined. It raises the question as to the correctness of Biblical interpretation.

The gravamen of the charge that the Christian Science teaching as to sin, sickness, and death is anti-biblical, is that these three things, from the standpoint of the objectors, are real and potent, while Christian Science maintains that they are unreal and impotent. Here is the apparent difference, the solution of which rests upon the sense in which the words real and unreal, potent and impotent are used.

As a matter of ordinary reasoning it may be said that the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," divides sharply between the real and the unreal. The more one studies and the better one understands the distinction made by its author, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy, the clearer becomes the distinction. Indeed, one cannot intelligently read the text-book until one has grasped a measurably clear idea of what the author means by the words real or unreal as applied to sin, sickness, and death.

What is reality? Is it that of which the physical senses alone take cognizance? Is it that which finite reasoning only can determine? Is it that which the limited mortal mind, of itself, can comprehend? Must we judge of the unseen by the seen? Can we analyze the spiritual from the standpoint of the physical or material? If so, what of divine revelation? what of the inspiration, spiritually considered, of the Scriptures? and what of the supernatural or metaphysical?

Christian Science answers the above inquiries from the standpoint of the metaphysical—that which is above and beyond the physical. It declares that only the spiritual is real. Why? Because only the spiritual is permanent and unchangeable. It uses the word real in the same sense that the apostle Paul used the word eternal, and the word unreal in the same sense that he used the word temporal. Paul divided sharply between the eternal (real) and the temporal (unreal). Not more so does the Christian Science text-book. Not more so could any one—if Paul's meaning is understood.

Let us, then, place sin over on the side of the temporal according to the Pauline definition, which, according to the Christian Science definition, is simply placing it on the side of the unreal. What is its place? If it is real, in this sense, it is eternal, and if eternal it can never be overcome or destroyed. In this view God's eternal Kingdom would be a Kingdom wherein sin would have eternal place and power. If sin had such place and power all its direful consequences, its sorrows, its blighting and appalling effects, would likewise have place and power. God's universe would thus be a place in which there would be endless sin with an endless train of sin's results. Where, then, would be mankind's redemption from sin and its effects? Where the hope of salvation? Where the Scriptural promises of the saving of all?

Christian Scientists plainly read in Scripture the annihilation of all sin, and with its annihilation the annihilation, of course, of all its consequences. In Genesis, wherein God pronounced all He made to be good, nay, very good, Christian Scientists read of the unreality of sin. If sin, or evil, then, is a part of the eternal universe it either must be good, or it got into the universe through some creative power outside of or apart from God. Can we conceive this to be true? Christian Science maintains that it is not conceivable; wherefore it concludes that God did not create sin, that it was not, could not have been, created by any other power than God, for Genesis plainly declares Him to have been the only Creator, and the only creative power. Whence, then, the real origin of sin? Is it, can it be, other than a human belief, and not a divine fact?

Christian Scientists read in Isaiah the annihilation of the Satan or Lucifer of the Bible:—

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit.... But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet."

Christian Science teaches that such statements refer to the destruction of the sin of which Lucifer is here pictured as a personalized type; but whether typically or literally construed, the fact of annihilation distinctly appears.

If the annihilation of the Satan or the Lucifer of the Scripture is here clearly shown, the annihilation of hell as clearly appears in Revelation, 20:14: "And death and hell were cast into the of fire;" the fire here typifying a burning or destruction.

It would seem that when Satan (as the personal representative of sin) and hell (as the place, or locus, of sin) are annihilated, there is nothing left of sin.

Now if sin were real in the sense that it is an essential part of God's creation, could it be thus annihilated? If we admit that a part of God's creation can be destroyed, we must logically concede that the whole could be, and thus we would have a temporal instead of an eternal creation.

The Christian Science text-book couples sin, sickness, and death together as a "triad of errors." (Science and Health, page 302.) Its teaching is that sickness is a consequence of sin, and all admit that death is a result of sickness. If sickness and death are a result of sin, and sin is unreal, it follows that sickness and death are likewise unreal. An unreal cause cannot produce a real effect. Such logic would be absurd.

As to sickness, it may be asked, is it not real to the suffering invalid? Humanly speaking, yes, distressingly real —while it lasts; but when it is entirely gone—destroyed—by whatever means, where is its reality, in the Christian Science use of the term? It was—if we may be allowed the paradox—a temporary reality. The most ardent advocate of the reality of pain surely will not maintain that pain is eternal. If it were there would be little use in either physician or Christian Scientist endeavoring to prevent it.

In thousands of instances the Christian Science practitioner has been called to the bedside of persons writhing in pain which seemed to them unendurable, but in a few moments it was gone, and the patient resting at perfect ease, or in a peaceful slumber. After the pain was thus destroyed, will it be said that it is yet real? It was real to the senses of the patient while it lasted; but this is not the kind of reality meant by the Christian Science use of the word. Nor is it an unwarranted juggling with words. It is but the logical distinction between the temporary and permanent—the temporal and eternal.

Then what of death? If, as all who believe in a future life at all admit, it is but a change from one state or condition to another, it is not more real, in the logical sense of reality, than its predecessors, sin and sickness. However awfully and painfully real it may seem to the purblind sense of mortals this side the veil, if life is continuous, who shall say that death is real to the sense of him who has passed beyond the veil? To his sense he is yet alive. He may be fully aware that he has passed the portal of what mortals call death, but if he is alive he is aware of it, and, therefore, he is not really dead. He has but passed through the belief of death—the temporal conditions which bring about the change called death, but which conditions are not and cannot be eternal, else death would be eternal; this would be, not death, but extinction.

It will be observed that the passage above quoted from Revelation couples death and hell together; both are cast into the lake of fire—that is, destroyed. Thus death as a human belief becomes extinct, but mankind who are born of Eternal Life never become extinct. They forever retain their true relation to the God who created all good.

This will be known when the veil of sin shall be removed—when death and hell shall have been consumed in the fire of destruction.

We wish it distinctly understood that our text-book does not treat sin, sickness, and death lightly, as some seem to think. On the contrary, it teaches that, humanly speaking, they are to be overcome and destroyed as Jesus and his disciples overcame and destroyed them. It teaches that it was the solemn mission of Jesus and his disciples to prove the unreality of sin, sickness, and death by destroying them, and that it is the duty of Jesus' followers in all ages to strive to learn the divine law by virtue of which he did this, and having learned it, to practise it in the interests of suffering and dying humanity.

No, the Christian Science text-book dwells deeply and profoundly, not flippantly, on this subject, and no one can read the text-book in a serious and unbiased manner without becoming convinced of this. Moreover, the sincere, unprejudiced, and careful student of this book cannot long read it in connection with the Bible without seeing that its teachings are unassailably based upon Holy Writ in its deepest and truest import.