It is not at all surprising, when we come to give the matter due thought, that we find Christian Science—the scientific and practically applied method of the pure and uncorrupted religion of Jesus Christ, as embodied in the Holy Scriptures—meeting with the combined antagonism of the teachers and advocates of the many improvements—inventions of human wisdom—which from time to time have been added, to render the too plain and simple teachings of the humble and lowly Jesus more palatable to human intelligence, and the wishes and desires of a selfish and fashionable world,—the greater part of which are merely professors of Jesus, not deeming it necessary to walk with or after him, but rather preferring to live wholly for the things rejected and despised by him,—such as the desires of the flesh, the cravings for earthly power and glory, and the ambition to be thought wise and great,—all of which his teachings proved to be erring, illusive, at war with Spirit, "and at enmity with God."
The upholders of these improved dogmas and doctrines, unwilling to acknowledge their own erring blindness, vainly seek,—and for some sixteen centuries have sought,—with cheerless and unsatisfying offerings of empty, meaningless forms and creeds, and unsupported words, to appease the spiritual cravings of the Christian heart, for the Substance, and not the shadow, of the religion of Christ,—for the practical proof of the teachings in the fulfilment of the promises made by our Lord,—not for any special period of time, but for all time,—that certain clear and positive signs should follow all them who believe in him. Among the signs specified, were healing the sick and the sinful, and casting out all manner of error.
The large and organized Christian churches of the present age, it may be truthfully asserted, appear much stronger in their belief and faith in the infallibility of their individual founders (all of whom were Dissenters), than they do in the infallibility of him who was "mighty in word and deed," and who was the Word of God.
