Editorials

WHEN one recalls the part which the belief of evil has played in the tragedy of mortal experience, and the universal longing to escape the suffering which always attends its reign, it is not difficult to accept the statement that in the course of human history more sacrifices have probably been made and more prayers offered to the devil than to God. Devotion to rites that are cruelly painful and oppressive, as well as degrading, to the end that some malicious spirit may be propitiated, some dreaded event be escaped from, characterizes practically all so-called heathen religions, and the traveler may still come upon concrete evidences, in many lands, of an enthronement of a belief in the power of evil which is too sadly pitiful to be either described or forgotten.

MUCH of the criticism of Christian Science which finds its way into the public press these days is in reality a criticism of the critic's own belief of what Christian Science is; and this is nowhere more apparent, to those who are familiar with Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy's other writings, than when the would-be critic fails to distinguish between Christian Science in its reliance upon divine Mind and the mental suggestion which depends upon the willpower of fallible mortal mind, or when he confuses Christian Science with faith-cure.

At the head of the list of anniversary congratulations to well-known people which Life prints every week, there stands in the issue of July 14, 1910, the following tribute. It gives us much pleasure to reproduce this tribute from Life, and to express in Mrs.

CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS are always glad to hear of criticism of their doctrines and practice, if only it be fair and if the critic does not claim to have a complete knowledge of the subject when he has only the dilettante's point of view. The time has gone by when any thoughtful person, especially one with religious conviction, can afford to admit ignorance of Christian Science.

IN no particular, perhaps, is Christian thought more sadly awry than in its concept of the nature and law of the divine activity in creation, and for this fact one of the world's greatest poets is largely responsible. Milton wrote not only as a poet but as a theologian, and when the profoundly moral earnestness of this great religionist finds expression in the "incomparable phrases," as Matthew Arnold calls them, with which lie pictured the events narrated in the second chapter of Genesis, the sympathetic reader retains not only a vivid remembrance of his majestic measure, but he can hardly escape the impress of an interpretation which is no less material in its sense than splendid in its setting, and the effect has been to fix in thought a sense of God and His order which yet dominates dogmatic theology, but to which the spiritual interpretation of the Bible is and ever has been inherently opposed.

WHEN Jesus healed the sick of "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease," there is no record that he used any material means; and we may say that this claim is universally admitted, notwithstanding the captious critic of Christian Science who occasionally comes to the fore with his assertion that the Master did make use of clay and spittle in the case of the man who was born blind. It is also generally admitted that Jesus' reference to the works which he had done, and the "even greater works" which his followers were to do after him, did not contemplate a different system from that which he had employed.

ONE of the immeasurably important factors of life is environment, and other things being equal, he who wins the largest number of spiritual suggestions from his surroundings will make the best showing in his Christian progress and achievements. Place, friends, opportunities.

A CHRISTIAN SCIENTIST , in conversation with another of the same faith, said, "I would give up all I possess, deny myself all the comforts of human existence, if I could thereby heal the sick as did Christ Jesus;" and there are doubtless many others who would in all sincerity echo this sentiment. St.

ONE of the stock criticisms of Christian Science promulgated by those who have only a superficial acquaintance with its teachings, is that these teachings permit the followers of this faith to do evil; that is, these critics assume that the acceptance of the declaration that there is no evil, must carry with it the belief that all human or mortal experiences are good, therefore may be indulged with impunity and without sin. The utter fallacy of this criticism is apparent even to one who in his own experience has touched but the border of Christian Science teaching, for to those who believe that all which really is, is created by infinite Mind, and cannot be otherwise than perfect and good and eternal, like its creator, it is perfectly plain that the statement that there is no evil is truthfully made in the exact and scientific sense of evil as being in no sense a part of God's creation, and therefore without entity,—unreal.

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