God is supreme Being, supreme Intelligence, supreme Principle. There can be but one Supreme Mind. Any other theory leads directly to the Pagan conception of gods many. This is the plain and emphatic teaching of the Bible, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Nothing could be more plainly expressed in language. A mere glance at these books ought to be sufficient upon this point. Their language is unambiguous and unmistakable. Over and over again is God's supremacy therein stated. In view of this it is amazing that any who claim to believe the Bible, and Science and Health, should for a moment doubt God's supremacy, or his oneness and omnipotence. Yet the startling fact confronts us that there are those not only professing to believe these books, but some of them assuming to teach and expound their meaning in the name of Christian Science, who persistently maintain that man is the only omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent being. In our February number we quoted from some of these. Their language was so bold and plain as to be incapable of misconstruction. We may be pardoned for again quoting from this same source. "Now be it known; it is Man who robes God (his Ideal) with Omnipotence. It is Man who sees God (his Ideal) Omnipresent. It is Man (not God) who claims for God Omnipresence. The All-knowing Man; the All-powerful Man; the All-seeing Man, does this."
Here then is an unequivocal declaration that man is God, and the only God. Such a doctrine, we fancy, would be startling even to the heathen, for they acknowledge the existence of gods that are superior to mortals; but this remarkable doctrine, seeking to gain for itself adherents under the name and guise of Christian Science, would annihilate even the gods of Paganism, and substitute man as the only God. Such audacity exhibited in this age, and in Christendom, seems quite unaccountable. Yet to those who have made a study of mental phenomena, and are thus more or less familiar with the irrational extremes to which mesmerism, both from without and from within, will lead its victims, it is not as strange as to others. It is a phase of mental gymnastics along religious lines peculiar to these latter days that is scarcely less awry than the restless and feverish mental atmosphere so noticeable in the social, business and political world. Even Nature (so-called) would seem to be in a state of general fermentation, if we may judge from the irregular conditions exhibited in weather, storm, flood, earthquake, and other physical commotion. Surely these are times of "chemicalization"; this word, introduced by the author of Science and Health for the first time into religious nomenclature, is becoming more and more expressive as time goes on and its prophecies are being fulfilled. Old conditions are breaking up, thought is being recast in various departments of mortal life, and we can scarcely hope to avoid seeing many chemicalizations in the mental realm, such as will lead certain temperaments to almost any excess of riot. We may be sure that whenever mortal man seeks to make himself Deity or erect for himself a belief in any intelligence, power, mind, or principle apart from God, he will run riot, for he has no other refuge than himself. He can feed his self-esteem and satisfy his mad ambition for supremacy only by referring to himself all-power, all-wisdom, all-presence; thus to his upheaved imagination he becomes the only God, and seeks to enthrone his own supremacy. Can any thinking, unmesmerized person fail to see that such conceptions are the wild errantry of overweening egotism?
It is unfortunate, from any point of view, that any sentient being should become so blinded. It is more unfortunate that any who were personally taught by Mary Baker Eddy, and whose opportunities for acquiring a true knowledge of her teaching were of the very best, should become prime movers in the kind of teaching and preaching we are considering. Yet it is true that for some years past such persons have been travelling from Maine to California spreading this pernicious heresy, and quoting the Bible and our text-book in support thereof. They claim prestige and privilege because they were taught in the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, and have been conferring (and we are informed are still conferring) upon their students the degree of C. S. B.—(Bachelor of Christian Science). It is well understood that no one has, or ever had, the right to confer this degree other than Mrs. Eddy herself as President; and it cannot be that the persons so unauthorizedly conferring it are ignorant of that fact. It seems they go ahead regardless of right or authority, as recklessly defying all human order and authority, as divine. Whoever before heard of an alumnus of a college conferring degrees pertaining to his alma mater upon his students? With as much propriety might a graduate of Harvard, who goes forth as a teacher from that institution, confer the Harvard degrees upon his students. Can anyone fail to see the ridiculousness of such a thing?
