Articles

THE Christian Church throughout its history has universally pictured Christ Jesus as "the man of sorrows. " This subject has always been a favorite one with the theologians; many a discourse has had for its theme the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, with its wonderful word painting, where in prophetic vision the Messiah is depicted as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

AS in the days when Jesus was on earth, his gospel of healing is continually opposed by the representatives of hereditary doctrines to which the human mind gives the authority of precedent and law. Except for some refinements and variations, these formulations of so-called law are substantially the same as the articles of belief and the erroneous precepts which the Master was compelled to meet and master.

FAITH is a word used primarily to express the state of consciousness essential to religious teaching, and it is commonly differentiated from the understanding which is essential to the acceptance of scientific teaching or knowledge of truth. It is ordinarily thought that the understanding of physical science is an activity of the human mind based upon the testimony of material sense, and that therefore it is to be relied upon; while faith is regarded as a transcendental mental state, a spiritual attitude which accepts as a guide to eternal life theories about an unknown and unknowable God, and which bases its hope of salvation upon belief in the unexplainable miracles attending the life of Christ Jesus, who through a special gift from God was able to put aside the customary order of divine law for a specific time and purpose.

IT is not so many years since a noted infidel delivered a lecture on the above question, the published report of which was interspersed with the bracketed comments of his audience, such as "laughter," "renewed laughter," "roars of laughter," etc. Think of a set of mortals, conscious of the sad need of the world, making merry over the question that the relentless curse of sin and suffering has wrung from agonized lips since the beginning of time! Yet, in spite of their untimely mirth, in spite of the speaker's ridicule, there must have been in the hearts of both lecturer and people a pathetic yearning to know, after all, what can deliver mankind from their unhappiness and misery.

JESUS declared that the truth shall make us free; but there are unnumbered thousands of men and women throughout Christendom despairingly repeating the cry of Pilate of old, "What is truth?" It is evident, therefore, that somehow the world at large has not found the right way to truth. The world is filled with the complaint of the agnostic, who declares that he can affirm nothing and can deny nothing in respect to basic or ultimate truth; but in this initial statement agnosticism refutes itself, because the declaration that we can affirm nothing and can deny nothing is really an affirmation and a denial.

" THY sins be forgiven thee!" When Jesus made this bold statement to the sufferers who came asking him to have mercy upon them, what authority had he to forgive sins? How could he forgive them? We are taught in Christian Science that sins are forgiven only as they are destroyed, and how can any one destroy the sins of others? How can he bring about the mental condition in them which must accompany such a change? In Christian Science we learn, too, that to forgive never means to endure, but to do away with whatever is unlike God, to put it out of consciousness; to give the offending one a new likeness in our thought in place of the one formerly, and perhaps habitually, held of him. We can give him a true concept of himself only by holding such a concept in our own consciousness.

WILL an appeal, by the afflicted, to the subconscious mind, result in mental or physical harmony? In other words, is the subconscious mind, so called, a healer of disease? Let us examine for a moment this claimant to healing power, and scrutinize more or less closely its credentials. What is the so-called subconscious mind? Assuming for the moment the hypothesis of the academic psychologists, with its classification of mind as the "conscious, the subconscious, and the superconscious," to be "scientific" the subconscious mind must of necessity abide in or be exemplified by the lower strata of consciousness; in other words, in the under, or lower, or imperfect state of consciousness.

THE craving for freedom lies deep in the human heart; it is the goal of our struggle. History is strewed with broken promises of its fulfilment.

JESUS did not begin his ministry, or do any healing works, until after his victory over evil, in what is called his temptations. It is therefore evident that individual victory over temptation, or the demonstration of man's spiritual purity, is the first essential to success, both in preaching the gospel and in healing the sick.

THE word evolution, with which modem science has made us familiar, has undergone such a dramatic reversal of fortunes as to give it almost a romantic flavor. A generation ago it was regarded as having a particularly emphatic irreligious meaning, because it was thought to show that anything like an all-wise creator or a rational purpose in the world was quite unnecessary or doubtful.