A Times reporter yesterday accepted the general invitation which is extended in these columns weekly to attend the services in Grange Hall. He found a group of earnest devotees of this novel gospel, who greeted him with quiet cordiality. There was singing, responsive reading, and a sermon drawn directly from the Scriptures. The day's topic referred to "God the Sole Cause and Creator." It was comprised in various Biblical quotations bearing upon the subject and accompanied by an interesting text-book commentary to enforce and amplify the application. Following the benediction, the reporter enjoyed some conversation with those present. There was no mistaking their conviction. They had braved opinion in withdrawing from the more generally accepted denominations and were armed for defence but not at all bitter in antagonism. To them the "imaginary" barriers of mortality seem so slight that the present and future are already one. Education is continuous; spiritual perception can as well realize heaven now as forever anticipate. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," says the Lord's prayer.
Not only ills of body but of condition are reached by these Scientists. Hardships and poverty they declare must flee before advancing knowledge. In the domain of physical healing they deem it an injustice that single cases of failure should be made more conspicuous than scores of cures that infinitely exceed the percentage of cases indebted to medicine and surgery. The physicians are not slow to retort with instances where their art has demonstrated the fallacy of Christian Science, though they are inclined to admit that it may possess efficacy in certain nervous and mental disorders by putting the influence of the mind at work. Scientific hypnotism agrees with this view, but considers beneficial results in these cases as identical with its own phenomena and merely arrived arrived at by another route.
Christian Science is certainly worth examination for what it includes. Though apparently bordering on mysticism, it is clear in statement; stigmatized for heresy, it adheres to the Scriptures. Said one of its eminent lecturers: "Jesus saw that sickness was a consequence of sin and the best way to cure it was to cure the sin. Thus we see that the healing of the body and soul are not two things but one. 'Go into all the world and preach the gospel' was allied in the same sentence with 'Heal the sick.'"
