Pastor—was quite right in assuming, when composing the discourse which was published recently, that Christian Scientists are not averse to truthful criticisms. It should be noted, however, that a criticism may be sincere but not intelligent, and honest but not truthful.

The clergyman's main criticism of Christian Science centered about the statement that Mrs. Eddy "settled all doctrinal differences with the dictum that there is no evil, no sin, no death; that what have been so called are merely errors of the mind." In short, he tried to make Christian Science absurd by reducing it to a set denials. It would be as fair as this to say that the Christian teaching of man's origin rests on the negation of human fatherhood. Christ Jesus did say, "Call no man your father upon the earth;" but if these words alone were put forth as his teaching on the subject to which they relate, he would be misrepresented. The denial which they expressed was based on the affirmative truth, "For one is your Father, which is in heaven;" and the denial without the affirmation would not be understood. So also a criticism of Mrs. Eddy for denying the absolute reality of evil, without reference to the basis of her denial, is unfair and misleading.

In what manner, then, did Mrs. Eddy deal with the mystery of evil? She consistently accepted the monotheism of the Bible. "You must begin," she has written on page 275 of Science and Health, "by reckoning God as the divine Principle of all that really is." A more complete statement of her reasoning, yet short enough to be quoted here, is the following from page 472 of the same book: "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise." It may be added that the mystery of evil is most clearly dispelled when some item of it is destroyed, and cast out of one's experience, by the spiritual understanding which Christian Science confers.

The clergyman also denounced Christian Science with several harsh adjectives for teaching that God is omnipresent, and said that "nothing in the Bible so declares;" again, "An omnipresent God is not a person." These quotations contain his reasons without his epithets. As I read the Bible, it distinctly declares that God is everywhere. (See Psalms cxxxix. 7-10; Jer. xxiii. 23, 24; Acts xvii. 27, 28.) As for the word "person," it has too many meanings for unqualified use with reference to the Deity. Christian Scientists do not believe that God is like a human person. They ask with Isaiah, "To whom then will ye liken God?" They understand, as did Solomon, that God is infinite—"the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain him." Christian Scientists do, however, hold that God is personal in the highest and truest sense of that term. He is the deific, infinite, omnipresent Person; and as a scribe said with the Master's approval, "there is none other but he." The word "Principle," and the term "divine Principle," as used in Christian Science, have been found helpful in getting rid of finite conceptions of Deity and gaining the infinite idea of the infinite One. During this unfoldment there is need to remember continually, as Mrs. Eddy has written on page 275 of Science and Health, that "God is Love, and therefore He is divine Principle."

The clergyman was also mistaken when he said that Christian Scientists attribute their healing to "a supernatural power." The power by which Christian Science healing is done is both spiritual and natural. It is, as Jesus said, the "finger of God," which is to say, the power of God. According to the book of Genesis, the law of our creation and being includes the decree, "Let them have dominion,"—dominion "over all the earth." This is one of the natural rights of man, and it is one that exists in all its fulness as an idea to be apprehended and realized, even though the average man manifests more subjection than dominion. Christian Science declares that man's birthright of dominion is not the power to interfere with the true order of the universe, nor is it the power of one person to impose his human will on another. On the contrary, man's God-given dominion is the power to overcome disorder, to subdue discord, and to reflect the divine Life.

The acts of power done by Christ Jesus were spiritually natural. They were the demonstration of divine law. They were his answer to his own question, "Is it lawful . . . to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?" (See Luke vi. 6-10.) The claim that the power to do as he did was supernatural, abnormal, or peculiar to himself, was anticipated and refuted when he said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also;" and, "These signs shall follow them that believe." A personal and supernatural sense of the power exercised by Christ Jesus is the chief hindrance to the fulfilment of these sayings.

The clergyman criticized the publishers of Christian Science literature, and did so in a very censorious manner, on account of the prices for which this literature is sold. It can be safely said, however, that this cavil was not expressed by reason of a desire that Christian Science literature should be made more accessible to the public; hence the propriety of the criticism is at least doubtful. Christian Science literature can be obtained for a substantial price, or it can be obtained for nothing, by any one who wants to read it. It is published without profit to any person or group of persons; the difference between what it costs and what it sells for is devoted solely to maintaining and developing the ways and means by which "good tidings of great joy" shall be made known to all people. The use of the profit which accrues from the sale of Christian Science literature can be illustrated by the fact that its publishers, during the last five months, have delivered, free of charge, three hundred and thirty thousand periodicals and pamphlets of this literature, in several languages, to the armies and navies which are now at war.