It is often said by those who are just beginning to investigate Christian Science, and those who are too blind to see, that there is little or no difference between Christian Science and Orthodoxy. Looking deeply into this thought, we see, if this is true, that our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, has not really given us anything new, simply changed the name of the old. Ask those who seek and strive to enter the strait and narrow way, according to the rules of our text-book, Science and Health, if they were enabled to understand, as they do now, with even a limited knowledge of the Truth, or were gaining anything of the real.
Were we not taught that sorrow, sin, and death were sent of God? The mortal senses have made a reign of discord, while God made everything that was made, and made it good, like himself. And have not many of us been accounted insane because we even dared, after so many years of servitude to these senses, to make the attempt to rise from their thraldom?
We know better than we wish we did, this false teaching. Let us now see what foundation we have from the Truth side to sustain our denials of these false claims. We find them not in God — they are limited; we see them begin and end; no two persons having exactly the same sense of them, how could we ever reach the one Mind by this road? What could Paul mean in Titus, 2: 7, by shewing ourselves a pattern of good works, if there were some evils actually existing, as is claimed, for he says in "all things."
Then here is another departure. Most of us were taught from the literal interpretation of the Scripture that there was a place called hell, which was the abode of the departed who had not believed on Jesus as their personal Saviour. Their lives, or how they had lived, was not to be considered; simply believe on Jesus and they were to escape this dreadful place. When we got the "little book" (579-1), behold, we found we were already in this condition of thought, and that there was only one way out, and Jesus shows us that way. Now we see we have to understand Him, and go and do as he did, to be saved. This not only shows how different is the thought of hell in Christian' Science and Orthodoxy, but gives a hint of the atonement.
Christian Science does not teach us that believing on Jesus in the commonly accepted sense of the term will help us; but it does teach that to go and do as he did, to accept, his example for our own, and practise it without ceasing, will do for us what it did for him; will at last show us our at-one-ment with the Father; that we never have been separate from Him; but live, move, and have our being in God, not in matter, as we were taught. Have we not in this thought, instead of denying the carnal mind as Jesus taught was necessary, cultivated it and enlarged upon it, until it has been the ruler of us? Never once did our loved church hint that this was wrong (how could they tell what they had not perceived); but rather encouraged it. Surely this is the kind of knowledge Paul meant when he said, "Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the Truth" (2 Timothy, 3: 7).
When at last we are awakened to our true condition and say with the Prodigal Son, "I will arise and go to my Father,"' then we find we do not gain heaven — harmony — by dying. Jesus actually taught the kingdom of heaven is within us — is a condition of mind attainable here and now. How this speeds our footsteps, for everyone who sees is willing to strive for this, while we were not willing to die, even for Heaven's sake. The reason for this is now explainable, for the Scriptures teach, death is an enemy to be overcome.
Notwithstanding the seeming difference between Orthodoxy and Christian Science, let us not disparage the former, but rejoice that the leaven of Truth is also at work in this line, and that we do not find it to-day as it was ten years ago. Our dear Mother, by being true to the best there was in Orthodoxy, has been able to give us this new, beautiful, practical Christian Science, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures;" therefore having this Truth revealed to us, let us with patience, meekness, humility, and perseverance press on to the "high calling whereunto we are called." This armor firmly buckled on will heal the sick and overcome death. To follow these commands of our Master has not even been thought possible by Orthodoxy.
