In your issue of March 16 there is a synopsis of a sermon...

Charles W. J. Tennant, District Manager of Committees on Publication for Great Britain and Ireland,—Harwich

Harwich and Dovercourt Standard

In your issue of March 16 there is a synopsis of a sermon delivered on a recent Sunday evening. In his address the clergyman makes the statement that Christian Science is "not Christian nor scientific." Let me say that Christian Science is Christian because it is based on the spiritual understanding of the teachings of Christ Jesus, and is fulfilling the commands of our Master to heal the sick and reform the sinner by his spiritual method. It is Science because it is susceptible of proof, being based on divine Principle and demonstrated according to its rules.

The reverend critic, in his endeavor to make a statement of the teachings of Christian Science, has evidently not referred to the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, nor to the authorized literature of the Church of Christ, Scientist, but has gone instead to books written by people who had no comprehension of the subject. For instance, he quotes as an authority a Dr. Charles Brown. Dr. Brown was never at any time a teacher of Christian Science; in fact, he was not even a member of the Christian Science church. If one should consider his book an authority on the subject, it would only prove how small a knowledge one had of the teachings of Christian Science and of the church established by Mrs. Eddy.

A Christian Science mother would not tell her child suffering from diphtheria that "there was nothing the matter with her, and that she must play with her friends and go to school as usual." Christian Scientists understand that, in their view, the practice of Christian Science provides a more efficacious method of curing illness than that provided by material methods; but they are scrupulously particular in conforming to all quarantine regulations regarding infectious diseases. I would also add that in England the law at present requires that a child shall have medical attention; and since Christian Scientists are law-abiding citizens, they are very careful to conform to this requirement.

The clergyman states that they could "often find theology expressed in the hymn book of a creed." It is true that the Christian Science Hymnal includes many of the hymns familiar to other churches, and a careful study will show that any alteration or omission has been made only for the purpose of making the hymns more expressive of the spiritual teachings of our Master.

Our critic's statement of the reason "why Christian Science did work cures," shows that he has no understanding of the divine basis on which the teachings of Christian Science rest. Christian Science recognizes that disease has a mental origin, that it is a false belief of the carnal mind which can be destroyed only by Truth, through the Mind of Christ, the divine Mind. Christian Science cures all manner of disease, functional and organic. It rests on the knowledge and demonstration of the truth which Christ Jesus said would make us free.

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