Your esteemed paper has recently contained a series of...

Nils Lerche, Committee on Publication for Norway,—Stavanger (translation)

Rogaland

Your esteemed paper has recently contained a series of articles entitled "The Sects," signed O. J. In the issue of March 29 the author deals with Christian Science, but the presentation he gives of this religion as well as of its Discoverer and Founder is so erroneous that I must ask space for some information.

It is possible that Mr. O. J. has read Mrs. Eddy's book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" but evidently he has not studied it thoroughly enough to comprehend its contents. It is an utter mistake to call this book "the Scientists' Bible." It is not a substitute for the Bible, but, as the title indicates, it explains the Bible. Christian Scientists use the same Bible as other Christian churches both at their services and in their daily study.

According to Mr. O. J., Christian Science teaches that "sickness, sin, and death are mere imagination and nothing else," and that Christian Scientists do not use prayer, but simply "reason themselves away from sin, sickness, and death." It is not quite so easy as this, however. Mrs. Eddy always used prayer, even in the affairs of daily life, and she constantly urged her followers to do the same. She writes in the above-mentioned book (p. 1), "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love." She also says (p. 113): "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science,—pulseless, cold, inanimate."

When, therefore, in Christian Science "right thinking" is mentioned in connection with healing, this does not mean a mere intellectual process, a theoretical consideration. It means that one is striving always to think spiritually and purely instead of materially; to think love for God and man instead of hatred, envy, revenge, et cetera, and to see evil as something impersonal that has nothing to do with the real man, the man who is not born of "the flesh," but is created in God's image and likeness. Is not this praying "without ceasing"? Anybody who will try to practice this right thinking will find that it is no easy work, but that it bears much fruit if one is honest and faithful.

Christian Science teaches that evil is unreal, because it is not created by God (see I John 2:15–17); and, therefore, we can by the help of God overcome it in our experience. "Whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it."

I do not consider that man wholly lost, no matter how far sunk in sin he may be, who sometimes has good thoughts. For good thoughts are blessed guests and should be heartily welcomed, well fed and much sought after. If we admit them and encourage them by entertaining them—if only for brief intervals—they may finally come to abide with us altogether. Like rose leaves they give out a sweet smell if laid up in the jar of memory.—Phillips Brooks.

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