Editorials

IN no respect, perhaps, is the teaching of Christian Science more significant to the advance of religious thought, than in its statement of the nature of evil. Considered from the human point of view, the problem of evil seems to have compassed all times, places, and events, and to have secured the service of all that selfishness and fleshly appetite, the love of power and the pride of life, stand for.

In  Science and Health ( p. 233 ) Mrs.

IF one were to note the things which men think of as having immediately to do with the issues of life, the circumstances, conditions, and possessions to which they look for success and satisfaction, he would find an interesting and reliable basis for human classification. The number of those who pay tribute to the insignificant is surprisingly large, and they give proof thereby that either ignorance or an educated bias has robbed them of a due sense of proportion.

IT is an interesting fact, too little known, that what are termed miracles are rejected by professed Christians almost as much as by those who deny in toto the Scriptural statements and who take the position that miracles would be violations of law, and therefore impossible. It is also interesting to note that the reasons assigned by scholars, philosophers, and natural scientists for their rejection of so-called miracles, are repeated by those who are not acquainted with their writings, but who fail to see that they are thus not only denying revealed truth but placing an entirely needless and foolish limit upon man's possibilities.

NO thoughtful Christian Scientist can fail to recognize more and more clearly, as the days go by and the opportunities come to him to put to the test the truth of Mrs. Eddy's teachings, not only for himself but for others, and in their demonstration to prove again and again the power of Truth to heal and to save today through reliance upon the one true God, as in the time of the Master and his disciples, how increasingly great is the debt of gratitude and loyalty that he owes to the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science,—gratitude for the blessings that have come to him through his utilization of its teachings, and loyalty to the cause and its forever Leader.

IN the book of Acts we find that when Peter and John were brought before the rulers, charged with the offense of having healed a man lame from the time of his birth, they were asked, as a preliminary to their judicial examination, "by what power, or by what name" they had wrought this miracle. They answered that it was through the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that this man had been healed, and they declared that the healing truth thus exemplified was the truth referred to by the psalmist as "the stone which the builders refused," but which "is become the head stone of the corner.

IN no respect are thoughtful Christian Scientists more entirely at one than in witnessing that their outlook upon life and its problems has been cleared; that they are no longer burdened with doubt and confusion, as they once were and as are the many today respecting vital spiritual truths; in a word, that their understanding of God and His righteous government has been wondrously enlightened. And yet, all those acquainted with the comments of the uninformed respecting Christian Science, have noted how frequently the intimation is conveyed that it makes unusual demands upon human credulity.

THAT the gospel Jesus taught and demonstrated was one of works as well as words, is the only reasonable conclusion to be deduced from the record of his public ministry as set down by the four evangelists. It is true that he preached the gospel of the kingdom wherever he went after he had gathered about him those whom he had chosen to be "fishers of men," for as he told the people he had not come to destroy the law promulgated from Sinai and handed down through many generations by the prophets invested by the supreme Lawgiver with power to declare His word, but he had come to exemplify in himself its glorious fulfilment.

There are a great many well-minded people who entertain the opinion that the metaphysical is the unintelligible; that it is an intangible, up-in-the-air kind of thinking about things, of which some normal and many abnormal people are greatly enamored, and that it has very little to do with practical affairs. Not infrequently one meets with those who explain their lack of interest in Christian Science by the statement that it is altogether too metaphysical for matter-of-fact, unlettered folk, and that they are compelled to content themselves with something they can more readily understand.

At the dawn of another year we are reminded of Mrs. Eddy's words, "Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year.