"What is Christian Science?"

JAMES D. SHERWOOD

Fort Worth (Tex.) Register

Mr. Editor,

In seeking answers to the question, "What is Christian Science?" our critic seems to have sought everywhere but in the right place, and he reminds one of the fruitless search of the parents of Jesus, when they sought for him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances. When later they sought in the right place, they found him, and he rebuked them by asking: "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" Rotherham's translation of this text has this footnote: "The implied answer is, 'To seek for me thus was an inadvertence on your part. It should have occurred to you at once that you would find me here.' 'Where my father's affairs are carried on, there you are sure to find me.' 'A child is to be found at his father's.' "

Does our critic find fault with Christian Science because its works approach the requirements left by our master whose injunction was: "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned"?

Does our critic oppose Christian Science because of its works? It is reforming the drunkard, healing the afflicted, and raising from the dead those who are sunken into the depths of despair through trespasses and sin. Why should he condemn men and women whose daily example indicates the nature of their religion? Jesus said, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you."

If every citizen of Fort Worth approached the standard of Christian Science, what would be the effect upon the body politic of that prosperous city? Would there be a saloon left? Would there be a pint of intoxicating liquor or a pound of tobacco vended? All manner of sinful appetites and practices would be purged and the grace of God would abound there. "For which of those works do ye stone me?" asked Jesus.

Science and Health elucidates the teachings of Jesus and shows how it is possible to do as he demanded of his followers, and all who will may understand; but Jesus made this emphatic statement, which is as true to-day as when uttered: "Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."

As to denial of the reality of matter by Christian Science, we learn from the gospel that "God is Spirit." God is infinite, God is omnipresence, omnipotence, and omniscience. God, spirit, being infinite, where is matter, spirit's opposite? Surely not in God, since a house divided against itself cannot stand; and such admission would limit God's allness. God declared the creation finished, and behold, "it was very good." You cannot add to infinity. Who then made sin, sickness, and death? Is God for or against sin, sickness, and death? If for them, they are eternal and good and of His creating; but John declared, "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil." This he did, and taught his disciples to do so, as proof, by their works, of their loyalty to his teaching. Christian Science denies the existence of matter as an entity, because matter, finity, denies the infinity of God, and we desire to abide by the admonition: "Let God be true, but every man a liar."

Mr. Myers says, "We cannot but admire the loyalty with which Mrs. Eddy adheres to her theory, notwithstanding the absurdity of it. There is no such thing as physical causation." But that is not Mrs. Eddy's "theory." It is the very word of God. Note what John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was God.... All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." If that seems absurdity to our critic, it is his misfortune. Jesus said: "Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures." In Genesis, we learn that God made all in His likeness, in the likeness of Spirit.

Christian Science, in declaring the non-existence of matter, does not annihilate but transforms. That which is, is real, and beautiful, and God-made, and eternal. We must get rid of the belief obtained through the testimony of false material sense, which calls everything matter and subject to decay, and we shall then learn the meaning of Jesus' prayer, "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."

Regarding the claim that Mrs. Eddy has but restated what Bishop Berkeley declared a hundred years ago, Mrs. Eddy, in her Message to the Mother Church in 1901, says, "I had not read one line of Berkeley's writings when I published my work, 'Science and Health,' the Christian Science text-book." She says further: "In contradistinction to his views I found it necessary to follow Jesus' teachings, and none other, in order to demonstrate the Divine Science of Christianity—the metaphysics of Christ—healing all manner of diseases."

JAMES D. SHERWOOD.
In Fort Worth (Tex.) Register.

Copyright, 1903, by Mary Baker G. Eddy.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit