Extracts from Reports of Christian Science Committees on Publication

Victoria, Australia.

There is evidence of much activity in the pulpit. One clergyman has been advertised on three occasions to preach against Christian Science, but the sermon has not yet been delivered. In his third letter to this Committee he wrote: "I very deeply appreciate your kindness in allowing me to retain Science and Health and 'Rudimental Divine Science' as a gift. I shall place them in my library, and give to them the respect due to works produced by a very earnest and inspired woman, and highly respected by many people, who testify to the benefits derived from their teaching. ... I may not be able to embrace the Science Mrs. Eddy teaches in all its applications, but I must acknowledge that her emphasis of the reality of the spiritual, as being, in the last analysis, the only abiding reality, is becoming the necessary emphasis in religious teaching to-day."

Several laudatory references have been made during sermons, evidence that the leaven of Truth is at work. A returned soldier, who had had a very beautiful healing, attended his old church one Sunday. During the sermon, the clergyman, noticing the health, love, and joy so visibly expressed on the face of the now happy man, stopped his sermon which was being radiocast, and said, "Thank God for Christian Science, and thank God for the radiance its students give forth."

Another kindly tribute to Christian Science was made in a city church recently. Halfway through the sermon the minister remarked: "One day a man came to me and showed me a pamphlet supposed to be the true facts about Christian Science. It said that Christian Science was the youngest child of the devil, and so on. The man said he was going to publish it; but I said, 'Put it in the fire; you will never overcome it by saying ugly things about it.' When I was in Boston," he continued, "I said to a friend one day, 'We will go to their prayer meeting and see what they do and what they talk about, and see what we can find out.' The first time we went it was close on eight o'clock, and we could not get in. The next week we arrived at a quarter to eight, and got the last two seats in a remote corner of the second balcony. When we got there and saw that great mass of people, it seemed as if the night of Pentecost had come. Every seat of that magnificent church, holding five thousand people, was filled—a seating accommodation in excess of any theater in Boston. Christian Science has helped many people, and those it has helped say, with the blind man, 'I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.' Just as long as they are helped, criticizing them will not have any influence in dissuading them. If we want to know anything about other systems of religion, let us be honest enough to look into them ourselves."

During the year, thirty-five religious articles from the Christian Science Sentinel and The Christian Science Monitor were reprinted in the Victorian Press. The reprinting of these articles brings Christian Science teachings regarding healing, business, etc., under the notice of a wide circle of readers.

In prison work—the women's division—much definite progress has been made, the officials acknowledging the change in the characters of the women inmates who are studying our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. During the year, a released man lent his Science and Health to a friend who was in a sanitarium. Such interest was taken in the textbook that the officer in charge had to purchase five copies to meet the demand from the patients.

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Editorial

Factors of Progress

November 7, 1931

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