In my recent letter, in reply to Mr.—, I promised to explain, with your permission, some of the many things another clergyman wanted to know. At the same time I cannot possibly cover all this critic's ground, for I have preference, as I think I have shown, for making good my contentions as I go on, instead of filling columns with assertions and questions on every theological problem which has perplexed human intelligence,—from Gnosticism to Arianism, and from Christian healing to the atonement.

This clergyman, for instance, refers casually to the atonement, as if it was a doctrine on which orthodox theology was united. Of course it is nothing of the sort. A distinguished member of the critic's own church not long ago stated, in an orthodox journal, no less than four modern views, as he termed them, of this dogma, for the purpose of adding a fifth one of his own. It is a little unreasonable, I cannot help thinking, of Mr.— to demand from me whether Christian Scientists agree with the orthodox teaching of the atonement, when I am perfectly certain he cannot tell me what that teaching is.

The critic's first point, he says, is that there were heresies, such as Gnosticism, in the early church, to which Christian Science is akin; that these heresies were condemned by the church from the time of the apostle John; and that my reference to the Covenanters has nothing to do with them. I have already had to show another critic that the trinity never was adopted by the church as a dogma until the fourth century, and that therefore he was a little premature in claiming it as primitive church teaching, especially as, in the interim, Arianism had received papal sanction. I must now impress upon Mr.—that Gnosticism, which by the by is the antithesis of Christian Science, was a product of the second century, so that it can scarcely have been denounced by "the beloved disciple." Dates are dates after all. While what I said about the Covenanters was, that the persecution of them was one of the later examples of the intolerance of the human mind, always trying to prove every one a heretic or a schismatic who does not agree with it. The Covenanters were only one link in a chain of illustrations I used in support of this. I can assure him I never imagined there was any connection between Gnostics and Covenanters. The latter were quite as convinced of the inviolability of the evidence of their senses as the critic himself.

Next, he says that Christian Science describes pain as illusion, and consequently, as it also says pain is the result of want of faith, Jesus must have lacked faith. What Christian Science says is that pain, in the words of one of the greatest natural scientists, is a condition of consciousness; and next that, as Jesus pointed out, this consciousness is a false consciousness, and can be destroyed. If it is not a false consciousness, it is part of the divine consciousness, and therefore indestructible. If it is part of the divine consciousness, Christians should welcome it, and not go to a doctor, who may be an infidel or a heretic, to endeavor to get rid of a God-sent gift. What Jesus really did was to show the world, through the medium of his own faith, the only Christian way in which to destroy pain; and so to illustrate something to which James referred when he wrote, "Faith without works is dead." When any man can heal the sick, raise the dead, and walk on the water as Jesus did, he will be in little danger of being accused of lack of faith.

Next, the critic gives three instances of what he terms my "free and easy" methods of exegesis. The first of these is Jesus' saying to Nicodemus about the flesh and the spirit. I explained what I thought this meant, and why I thought it. I still think that is a much more scientific method of exegesis than this gentleman's method of a flat denial without giving any reason for it. Perhaps he remembered at this moment that Jesus once said "the flesh profiteth nothing," and therefore thought it better not to attempt to explain how God came to create something which profiteth nothing, and which Paul said could not please Him.

The critic's second example is a second negation; he says Jesus never demanded the power to heal as a proof of discipleship. Did Jesus not say, "These signs shall follow them that believe," and go on to enumerate acts of healing? Did he not tell the disciples to teach the world all he had commanded them, and was not physical healing part of his command to them? Did he not declare that those who believed in him should do his works? and if those works are not done, is it not a proof of want of belief, and can one who is not a believer be a disciple? What the "greater works" may have been, has exactly nothing to do with the matter.

The third example given by him is a third negation tempered by an explanation. He says that when Paul wrote "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," he was not speaking of the knowledge of God, but of "loving sacrifice." Does he really believe that the mind of Christ is limited to "loving sacrifice"? What, for instance, does he think Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians, "But we have the mind of Christ"? He meant, as the context shows, the reverse of "human wisdom," "the teaching of the Spirit of God." Is not this what he refers to elsewhere as the scientific or absolute knowledge of God?

The latter part of the gentleman's letter is devoted to a criticism of Christian Science itself. The danger of it, he says, is its ideal of "a comfortable, easy, painless existence." Does he seriously think that the denial of materiality brings about ease in the senses? The struggle to shake off materiality constitutes taking up the cross daily in its truest sense. Does he really believe that a Christian Scientist, sitting daily by the sick, has embarked on a life of ease? Does he really believe that the knowledge that the failure to heal a case means publicity in the coroner's court, with the abominable insinuations of all sorts attached to it, is the choice of a life with no cross in it? I differ entirely from the critic in many ways, but I believe he is too much of a gentleman ever to use such an argument again.

Then, the critic says that Christian Science, in minimizing evil, becomes a path to hell. That is stupidly violent language. Christian Science shows that sin is not confined to the customs of geographical areas, but that everything not of God is sin. In this way its view of sin is much more comprehensive than that of orthodox theology. The world admits that to have a headache as the result of drunkenness is sin; but Christian Science insists that to have a headache as the result of anything is sin, since it is believing in some power apart from God. That is why Christ Jesus said, "For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?"

This brings us back once more to the inevitable question of healing, healing which Christ Jesus made the test of belief, and so of discipleship. Go into all the world, he said, and preach the gospel and heal the sick. The only proof to humanity that the gospel preached is the gospel of Christ, is that among the "signs following" is Christian healing.