Objection is made by our critic because Mrs. Eddy was the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Through study of the Bible, through prayer, reason, and revelation, the truths of Christian Science were made clear to her. In a time of need it became clearly evident to her that current religious doctrines were unavailing to do the works the Master commanded his followers to do. She therefore retired from society and studied the Bible until the divine mode of healing the sick and sinning employed by Jesus, the prophets, and the apostles, was revealed to her. This she gave to the world under the name of Christian Science. That her interpretation of the Bible is correct is proved by the results which have followed.

Mrs. Eddy made no attempt to confine her writings and teachings within the bounds of scholastic and traditional theology. To do so would have defeated her life-purpose, which was to bring to this world the healing power of Christ Jesus which for centuries had been explained away and ignored by this same scholastic theology. However, to assume that the teachings of Christian Science are at complete variance with great religious thinkers of all ages is a mistake, since all genuine seekers after God have seen more or less clearly the omnipotence of God and what it means, even if they have not grasped it sufficiently to make it available in healing the sick through spiritual understanding, as Mrs. Eddy has done for the modern world.

"The man in the street" would hardly expect a Christian minister to argue that a religion was wrong because it does not conform to "the accepted philosophies of this and past ages." And yet this critic gravely advances this proposition against Christian Science. Seriously, now, would this critic expect a religion based on the Bible to be based anything else but the Bible or to conform to any teaching but that of the Bible? Christian Science is based on the Bible. If the philosophies of this and other ages interpret and support the teachings and proof of Jesus and the apostles, well and good; if not, this lack is merely an evidence philosophies based on human reason do not attain to that spiritual insight which alone gives true and lasting views of God and His universe. In Science and Health (p. 126) Mrs. Eddy says: "I have set forth Christian Science and its application to the treatment of disease I have discovered them. I have demonstrated through Mind the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority."

The gentleman next complains that Christian Science teaching is in contradiction of the laws of hygiene. The critic is reminded that Jesus gave no approval of the so-called laws of hygiene which this critic deems so important. Laws of hygiene are merely human, mortal opinions, fluctuating and unstable as the wind. What yesterday was hygienic is today unimportant, and the hygienic laws of today may be cast aside tomorrow. Jesus warned his disciples against the systems of his time, which merely cleaned the outside of the platter. He insisted that the cleansing of thought was the essential thing.

Christian Science teaches with Jesus that purity of thought is vital. This gained, the body and the environment will be kept in order, pure and clean. Christian Science is in "direct contradiction of the accepted science of the day," declares this critic, and puts this forward as evidence that Christian Science is non-Christian. Material or physical science is what this critic evidently refers to. Would he be willing to test his own religious convictions by the converse of this statement,— that they are true only so far as they harmonize with physical science? Physical science starts primarily with the world as presented by the physical senses. Christianity as Jesus presented it transcends the mortal and physical and deals with the divine. St. Paul presented this distinction clearly when he said, "The things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal."

Our critic, however, is greatly mistaken when he infers that the conclusions of natural scientists are opposed to the teachings of Christian Science. Christian Science teaches that matter is not the creation of Spirit, but is "the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind" (Science and Health, p. 114). Arthur J. Balfour, former prime minister of England, at the London Congress of Natural Scientists of Great Britain, is reported to have said, "The material sciences are now explaining matter by explaining it away." John Fiske said, "All the qualities of matter are what the mind makes them, and have no existence as such apart from the mind." Huxley wrote: "After all, what do we know of this terrible matter except as a name for the unknown causes of states of our own consciousness." eminent physical scientists could be quoted, but the above quotations are sufficient to show the support given Mrs. Eddy's views by modern scientific thought.

Complaint is next made because Science and Health calls attention to the use in Genesis of the terms Elohim and Jehovah, and the critic declares that this proves that Mrs. Eddy is "in accord with rationalistic infidelity." The terms Elohim and "Lord were introduced by the writer of Genesis, not by Mrs. Eddy. What Mrs. Eddy did was to make clear that the term Elohim gave a clearer concept of God than the term Lord God or Jehovah, the latter being used to present an anthropomorphic concept of Deity. According to the first chapter of Genesis, Elohim created man spiritually; according to the second chapter, man was created out of the dust of the ground. The critic's contention is evidently not with Science and Health, but with the writer of the book of Genesis.

In his attempt to make God the author of material, mortal man, the critic commits himself to the proposition that God created man both spiritually and materially. This of course makes God the author of the material universe, and therefore responsible for all evil, sin, pestilence, poverty, sorrow, and death. But Habakkuk declared that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and cannot "look on iniquity." Paul said, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God;" and Jesus declared, "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." Christian Science teaches that God is Love, as St. John declared. His creation is spiritual, like Himself; therefore He is not the author of mortal man, of sin, sickness, and death.