Editorial July 3, 1915 Issue

Practical Christianity

Archibald McLellan

For centuries humanity has more or less uncomplainingly submitted to the yoke of bondage imposed by its beliefs that evil is practically unescapable in human experience, and that sickness and death are as much a part of this human experience as are the hours of the day and the days of the year. The fact that these beliefs are in no wise consistent with the Scriptures has seemed to escape most Christian believers, as also has the fact that Christ Jesus in announcing his mission declared that he came to do the will of the Father, to fulfil and not to destroy the law, and that men "might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."

Not from the early centuries of Christianity, until Christian Science—with its declaration that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468), consequently that evil is unreal and good the only reality—was announced to the world by Mrs. Eddy, was any considerable portion of humanity able to divest itself of the fear which for ages, consciously or unconsciously, had done much toward shaping the course of human thought and human action, in what might be termed a blind submission to a relentless fate. Through Mrs. Eddy's teachings hundreds of thousands of people who have become Christian Scientists are emerging from the fears and superstitions which so long have bound them, and are waking up to the realization that instead of sickness and suffering as an inevitable fate, it is their divine right to be well and happy. It is likewise becoming evident to an ever increasing number that God is not and can not be the author of evil, and as there is no other creator, evil must of necessity be unreal and nothing more than a false belief which has deluded mankind and robbed them of their birthright.

To persons who have been brought up to believe in that theology which regards as supernatural the healing of the sick and the doing of the other mighty works by our Master, Christian Science no doubt appears mysterious, but this is because they do not realize that the works of Christ Jesus were done in demonstration of divine Principle and according to a law which like its author is "the same yesterday, and today, and forever." The operation of this law must of necessity bring about exactly the same results at this time and in the future as it has done in the past, and it is the duty of Christian Scientists so to shape their course that the workings of this law will not be perverted.

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