In a sermon radiocast over this station a minister made...

J. Palmer Snelling

[Corrective remarks given over Radio Station WRGA, Rome, prepared by J. Palmer Snelling, Committee on Publication for the State of Georgia]

In a sermon radiocast over this station a minister made some derogatory remarks concerning Christian Science, and I shall appreciate a few minutes of time for a reply.

Our friend is reported to have said that Christian Science is neither Christian nor Science. Please let me say that Christian Science has been on the field for more than sixty years, and during that time it has risen steadily in the respect and esteem of thinking men and women throughout the world, including many ministers of the gospel and doctors of medicine. Nowadays one seldom hears the outworn statement that Christian Science is "neither Christian nor Science," for those who know enough about it to pass judgment are assured that it is both Christian and Science. It has healed and is healing today, through spiritual means alone, all manner of disease, both organic and functional. The weekly and monthly periodicals of The Christian Science Publishing Society carry in every issue well-authenticated accounts of the healing of both acute and chronic diseases of practically every name and nature, many of which had defied medical skill.

An informed person would hardly designate the treatment of disease through spiritual means an "imaginary cure." There are today many eminent physicians who freely admit the efficacy of treatment through prayer.

Again, our critic would doubtless hesitate to call the healings of Jesus and his apostles imaginary cures; yet he should remember that those healings, like those of Christian Science, were wrought through spiritual means alone. The Founder of Christianity, Christ Jesus, of whom our ministerial friend is an avowed follower, left for all time this unequivocal statement: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." Again he said, "If ye love me, keep my commandments."

Mary Baker Eddy states in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 342): "If Christianity is not scientific, and Science is not of God, then there is no invariable law, and truth becomes an accident. Shall it be denied that a system which works according to the Scriptures has Scriptural authority?" And in the preceding paragraph she says, "He that decries this Science does it presumptuously, in the face of Bible history and in defiance of the direct command of Jesus, 'Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel," to which command was added the promise that his students should cast out evils and heal the sick."

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