A DISCOURSE ON CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

[The following discourse was delivered November 25, 1900, by Abbot Edes Smith, C.S.B., at the Church of the Redeemer (First Universalist) of Minneapolis, Minn., by invitation of the pastor of said church, the Rev. Marion D. Shutter; the same being one of a series of discourses delivered in that church by representatives of different denominations. On the occasion in question, we are informed there were about fifteen hundred persons present, and the speaker received at the hands of the large audience most respectful consideration and attention.]

From the earliest times, mortal life has been darkened by misconception of the nature of God. Mankind has seen everywhere present sin, sickness, sorrow, pain, death. How to explain evil has been the great problem of every system of philosophy and of religion. In the study of this problem, the evil has usually been conceded to be equally real with the good, and much more widely spread and more powerful. Two forces, one good and the other evil, have seemed to be always at war with each other, and on this side of the grave, at least, evil has been believed to be generally triumphant. In many an Eastern country the good god or gods were deemed unable to protect their devotees against the bad god or gods, and hence the former were neglected, while the latter were sought to be propitiated by continual sacrifices. Even in the New England Primer, one of the earliest spiritual guides of our great-great-grandfathers and great-great-grandmothers, many of you may have read the "Dialogue between Christ, Youth, and the Devil," wherein Christ is defeated and Death comes with this message:—

The prophets of old had, indeed, caught glorious glimpses of something better than the impotence of Good and the supremacy of evil; but, rejected by the people and condemned by the theologians, the prophets were often persecuted and put to death. Nineteen hundred years ago, there lived in an Eastern country one who came to teach mortals that Good is always and everywhere supreme, and that evil is the temporary falsity from which, if we seek help of God alone, He makes us free. "Ye shall know the Truth," he said, "and the Truth shall make you free." Jesus proved his religion by what are called miracles; but he taught his disciples that these wonderful works are not supernatural, but divinely natural; not violations of law, but practical manifestations of God's universal law, the reign of Truth and Good. Thus Jesus Christ revealed God and taught his followers to prove their faith by their works, and, even as he did, to heal mankind from all evil,—mental, moral, and physical,—not by the power of the human mind over the human body, but by the power of God acting, not through special providences, but through God's unchanging law, the supremacy of God, which eternally governs man and the whole universe. And so Jesus "went about doing good," lived his beautiful life of purity and sacrifice, died a cruel and ignominious death on the cross, rose from the dead, and triumphantly ascended unto his Father and our Father, and to his God and our God. The early Christians were so cruelly persecuted that it required a great sacrifice of self to follow Christ, and during this period of self-abnegation healing accompanied the preaching of the gospel. Gradually healing disappeared, and the signs which Jesus declared should follow them that believed were no longer manifested by those professing to believe. Jesus' simple test of healing could, therefore, no longer be applied, and, contrary to Jesus' words, "If any man will do His will, he shall know of the doctrine," a new test of fellowship was established, namely, the intellectual acceptance of a man-made creed.

In the Christian Science text-book we read (Science and Health, p. 490): "Divine Love always has met, and always will meet, every human need;" and so, after centuries of darkness, God has raised up a prophet to lead men, not to her feet, but to the feet of Jesus, and to show them, by precept and by example, how to understand aright his teachings and to follow in his steps. Speaking of herself she says (Science and Health, p. 20): "I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master, and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only text-book. I have had no other guide in 'the strait and narrow way' of this Science." And again (Science and Health, Pref. p. ix.): "Today, though rejoicing in some progress, she finds herself still a willing disciple at the heavenly gate, waiting for the Mind of Christ."

Our Leader, Mary Baker G. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, descended from Puritan ancestry, was born early in the nineteenth century, in the town of Bow, New Hampshire. Her parents were devotedly religious and educated their daughter in the strict teachings of Calvinism. From childhood she was an earnest student of the Bible, and at the age of twelve she became a member of the Orthodox Congregational Church which her parents attended. Her connection with this church continued until she established in Boston the first church of Christian Science, which has since become what is lovingly known among her followers as the Mother Church. For many years, God had been fitting her to receive that spiritual illumination which was to unseal the Bible and so to illumine its sacred pages with the light of divine Love that, in the words of the prophet, "he may run that readeth it." In the year 1866, on the borders of the grave, when medicine and surgery had been appealed to in vain, and when every material help had failed, she found in the Holy Bible the way of Christian Science and was then and there immediately healed. After this revelation of God's healing power, she withdrew from society for three years, as she tells us, to ponder her mission (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 39), "to search the Scriptures, to find the Science of Mind, that should take the things of God and show them to the creature, and reveal the great curative Principle—Deity." She says (Retrospection and Introspection. pp. 30, 41): "The Bible was my text-book. It answered my questions as to how I was healed; but the Scriptures had to me a new meaning, a new tongue. Their spiritual signification appeared; and I apprehended for the first time, in their spiritual meaning. Jesus' teaching and demonstration, and the Principle and rule of spiritual Science and Metaphysical Healing,—in a word, Christian Science. ... The miracles recorded in the Bible, which had before seemed to me supernatural, grew divinely natural and apprehensible; though uninspired interpreters igonrantly pronounce Christ's healing miraculous, instead of seeing therein the operation of the divine law."

For years she suffered privation, loss of friends, and persecution, but still she pressed on; and if, to-day, at an age beyond the allotted life of man, engaged in duties more constant and onerous than those of many an active man of business, she is living in health and strength and material comfort, we thank God that she has proved the truth of Christ's words: "Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting;" and again: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you."

After preaching and healing for several years, mostly without compensation, Mary Baker G. Eddy published, in the year 1875, the first edition of her principal work, the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." This book has already passed through over two hundred editions of one thousand copies each. I have thus briefly described the origin of Christian Science, and I will now try, so far as can be done in one short address, to give you what must be at best only a cursory and superficial explanation of some of its fundamental teachings.

Here let me correct a misapprehension widely prevalent, that Christian Science is only a new theory or method of healing sickness. Perhaps the desire to be healed of sickness is what generally leads people to that which offers hope, where all else has failed; but after being physically healed, the patient finds himself a new man in many other respects. Instead of being irritable, selfish, dishonest, sensual, he has become cheerful, self-forgetful, honest, and pure. Instead of being profane, irreligious, infidel, or atheist, he has learned to know and to respect the God of the Bible, who has proved himself beyond the shadow of a doubt to be and to be only good, and who inspires the deepest reverence and love. How can this man help being religious? Many a man who is in bondage to some form of sin which has wrecked his life, turns almost hopelessly to Christian Science and the captive is made free. How can this man help being religious? Almost without exception, those who by God's power in Christian Science have been healed from the hopeless suffering of sickness, or of sin and its physical consequences, declare that their physical healing is not worthy to be compared with the great moral and spiritual revolution which has come to them. Yes, physical healing is, indeed, an essential part of our religion, but it is the smallest part. It is the gateway, as it were, through which a new world opens, a new life dawns.

Some thoughtlessly object to the use of the word Christian, as applied to our religion, for the reason that many pulpits repudiate Christian Science as heresy. I answer: What of it? The same accusation was formerly made against each of the now so-called orthodox churches. History repeats itself. The new in theology has ever been reviled as heresy and persecuted as such. Historically, the orthodoxy of to-day has been the heresy of the past, and the persecutors of to-day have been the persecuted of the past. Even Jesus Christ suffered death at the hands of the orthodox theologians of his time for what they termed his heresy and blasphemy; and in every age those who loved and followed him most devotedly and most unselfishly have, as he foretold, drunk of his cup.

The criticism is sometimes made that our religion cannot be scientific, because it has not yet the indorsement of the world of science. Every advance of scientific truth has met with a cold reception from the prevailing theories of science. Agassiz wisely said: "Every great scientific truth goes through three stages. First, people say it conflicts with the Bible. Next, they say it has been discovered before. Lastly, they say they have always believed it." The theories of science are constantly changing, and this teaches the broad tolerance which should characterize all true science, philosophy, and religion. The word science means literally a system of knowledge, and, strictly speaking, it should be applied only to absolute and eternal Truth governed by unvarying law. God's law, the supremacy of Good, governs man and the universe and annuls —makes void—the so-called laws of matter. This is absolute and eternal Truth governed by unvarying law; and it is on this basis that Christian Science teaches, with Paul: "The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death." The child may make a mistake in an example of mathematics, but none the less mathematics is science. The Christian Scientist may not always reach a perfect demonstration— —even the apostles of Jesus sometimes failed to heal— but none the less Christian Science is Science, in its truest and highest sense.

The first tenet of the Christian Science Church is given on page 493 of our text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy, and is this: "As adherents of Truth, we take the Scriptures for our guide to eternal Life." In no other denomination do Christians study the Bible more earnestly and reverence it more sincerely, or love Jesus Christ more deeply and follow him more closely. We accept the whole of Christianity, as taught by Jesus Christ and as tried by his tests, and it is on this basis that Christian Science stands to-day as the primitive Christianity of Jesus, restored to its original simplicity and purity and entireness. The Apostle Paul says: "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

The religion taught by Jesus is not of creeds and of doctrines, but of deeds and of life. He said: "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." Jesus' religion is essentially a religion of healing,—mental, moral, and physical. His command, "Preach the gospel," was always accompanied by his other command. "Heal the sick." The only evidence which he gave to the messengers of John the Baptist, in proof of his messiahship, was when he said: "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard: how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached." To the Jews who tried to kill him he offered similar testimony: "The works which the Father hath given me to finish, the same works that I do, bear witness of me, that the Father hath sent me." The only test of fellowship which Jesus gave, to prove who are his worthy followers, is this: "These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover;" and again: "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father." In the sixteenth chapter of John. Jesus says: "Verily, verily, I say unto you. Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name. He will give it you. ... Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full." In the first chapter of James is described the manner of prayer: "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord."

Thus, enlightened prayer to God, unwavering reaching out to God alone, is Christ's method for meeting every human need. This teaching is found all through the Bible, and especially throughout the New Testament. This is Christian Science. Like Jesus, the true Christian Scientist must say: "I can of mine own self do nothing," adding, with Jesus, "The Father ... doeth the works." Christian Science is emphatically a religion of prayer. I do not mean the prayer of blind faith to a God who has either sent, or permitted to be sent, evil upon his child, and who is besought in such prayer to change His eternal plan and to take away at least a part of this evil for which He, being all-powerful is alone responsible. No! the prayer of Christian Science is the prayer taught in the Bible, yes, by Jesus and his apostles—it is the prayer of a child to his heavenly Father who is known to be infinitely more loving than any earthly parent, to that God of whom David says: "When my father and my mother forsake me. then the Lord will take me up." In Browning's "Saul," David says (Saul, 17):—

The prayer of Christian Science is the prayer of that living faith, or understanding, which, as Paul says, "Is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," and which obeys Paul's rule to "Prove all things" and to "Hold fast that which is good." It is the prayer of the understanding which has learned that God is good, that God is the only Creator, that God creates and permits only good, and that whatever of evil appears to us is only our temporary mistake, which will disappear from our lives when, like Enoch, we learn to walk more closely with God. John says: "God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all." As light destroys darkness, so God destroys all evil, not by special providence, but by His universal law, the supremacy of good.

Prior to the advent of Christian Science, the practically accepted theory of prayer was that God varies His divine law, from time to time, by special providences; and the ordinary prayer was a pleading with God to grant some good thing which He had withholden from His child or to take away some evil thing which He had sent upon His child, or which, at least, He had permitted. Such prayer was, in fact, a not very hopeful pleading with an unwilling God to change His eternal purpose, in a particular instance. If such petition were granted, it was usually a matter of grateful surprise.

The prayer of Christian Science is a glad reaching out to God, who is known to be infinitely more willing to give than we are to receive, and in whose word we read: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. ... If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask Him?" Just in proportion as we doubt God's love and distrust His fatherly care, does our prayer become one of mere pleading, while the highest prayer, the prayer of certainty, is in truth a prayer, not so much of petition, as of praise and thanksgiving. Excepting his own resurrection and ascension, Jesus' greatest miracle was the raising of Lazarus, who had been dead four days. Do you remember Jesus' prayer at the grave? It was this: "Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me. And I knew that Thou hearest me always. ... And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. And he that was dead came forth."

I have spoken thus at length upon the subject of prayer, because it is by prayer in its truest, highest sense, as taught in the Bible and as explained fully in our text-book, that the Christian Scientist, for himself and for others, proves God to be a very present help in every time of need.

In order to be healed in Christian Science, it is not necessary for the patient to have that living faith described by Paul, which proves itself by its works. One who turns for the first time to Christian Science seldom has more than a little hope, together with an honest and earnest willingness to try if, perchance, God may be found to be as good as is claimed by this new-old gospel. Peter tells us that "God is no respecter of persons." James says (James, 5:16): "Pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." The nature of Christian Science treatment, whether for one's self or for another, is enlightened prayer to God.

I can lead you, to-night, only to touch the hem of Christ's seamless robe, which through the centuries men have sought to divide. In Christian Science we accept the whole of Christianity, in all its entireness, as taught by Jesus, and nothing short of this attitude of mind, made practical in daily life, enables his disciples to-day, as of old, to follow Jesus in the way of his appointing, by signs following.

If you wish to know more of this new-old religion of Christian Science, you must remember that no science can be thoroughly mastered without study and practice. For centuries, our ancestors have been reading the Bible without taking it to mean practically what it says, and without applying its teachings in their fulness to the needs of daily life. We have followed in their steps and we have limited the helpfulness of the Scriptures by the doctrines and practice of our particular system of theology and of medicine. Having eyes we saw not, having ears we heard not, and our minds were darkened that we would not understand. In order, therefore, to find in every one of the beautiful promises of the Bible a practical message to each one of us to-day, we must begin by studying "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," in connection with the Bible. The Christian Science text-book is so full of the spirit of the Bible that its honest, earnest perusal often results, without any other aid, in the physical and moral healing of him who so reads. When so studied, the Bible becomes to us a new and wonderful book, whose meaning, freed from our former preconceptions and misconstructions, is so clear and so simple that a little child can comprehend it. At last, with the Quaker poet, we shall joyfully exclaim:—

As I said at the beginning, the great problem of every system of philosophy and of religion has been how to explain evil. All our life we have been trying to solve the problem of evil. We have asked How, Why, Whence, Whither, in the hope of finding some answer which would enable us to rise out of the ocean of evil in which we seemed to be engulfed and to stand upon the solid rock of Truth, where God is revealed and where all is good; but efforts to understand the true, the beautiful, and the good by explaining evil have, throughout the ages, proved a hopeless failure, and none of the various theories concerning evil have ever satisfied the earnest yearnings of the human heart and the deep needs of human life. In every phase of experience, increased belief in evil has been followed by increased growth of evil. Evidently, if we truly desire to bring good into our lives, there must be some radical fault in this method of procedure.

Christian Science reverses this method. A premise of evil leads only to a conclusion of evil. If we begin with evil, we shall end only with evil, never with good. In Christian Science, therefore, turning our back upon evil and ceasing to study its nature, turning our back upon the darkness and looking steadfastly towards the light, we devote ourselves to the study of the true, the beautiful, and the good, as taught in the Bible and as explained in the Christian Science text-book; and our minds being thus filled more and more with good, and the light becoming to us clearer and clearer, the shadows of error and of evil and of darkness fade away out of our lives. The Psalmist says, "He uttered His voice, the earth melted." As God's law, the supremacy of Good, becomes established in our mind and governs our conscious thought, the so-called laws of evil, of matter, of mortal mind become for us subordinate to this higher law, the only real law, the law of God, until, some day, somehow, somewhere, we shall no longer see through a glass darkly, but we shall see face to face; we shall no longer know in part, but we shall know even as also we are known of God. Finally beholding His face in righteousness and awaking with His likeness, we shall be satisfied, and we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is, and then with Him we shall in deed and in truth find ourselves "of purer eyes than to behold evil." The conscious recognition of God's All-presence, God's All-power, God's infinite Love, is sufficient to enable us to overcome with Good all evil of whatsoever kind or nature. Thus, and thus only, being "strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might," shall we be able humbly and thankfully to exclaim with Paul, "I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me." And this we say, like Paul, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves, ... but our sufficiency is of God."

"This is life eternal," said Jesus, "that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent." As taught by Jesus, therefore, we begin with God as the great and only Cause, and reasoning a priori, from cause to effect, we seek to learn, from the nature of God and of His creation as described in the Bible, what must be the real nature of man and of the entire universe.

What, then, does the Bible teach concerning the nature of God? John says, "God is Love; and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God, and God in him." Paul says, "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Jesus says, "I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you." Such is the uniform teaching of the Bible concerning the nature of God.

In the first chapter of Genesis is given the spiritually scientific account of the creation of man and of the universe, an account which is in perfect harmony with the nature of God, as Love, as Good. There we learn that God made man in His image and likeness and gave him dominion over all the earth; that God made all that was made and saw that it was very good. Since with God there "is no variableness, neither shadow of turning," we know that this describes the nature of all that really exists, for God is the only Creator. "Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them." Jesus tells us that God is Spirit. Hence this true, good creation, man and the entire universe, must be spiritual.

After the third verse of the second chapter of Genesis comes the Jewish tradition which attempts to explain the origin of the material universe and of mortal man, conceived in sin and shapen in iniquity. In this tradition the Creator is no longer spoken of as Elohim, or God, but as Jehovah, or Lord God, and the creation is described as originating in a mist, or mystification, and as coming from and returning to dust, or nothingness. "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." Here is the first appearance of evil, which, having no origin in God, must be as ephemeral as the mist in which nothingness first appeared to become something. Only while clinging to the errors of this false, unreal creation, do we claim any life, truth, intelligence, substance, or power apart from God, who is Spirit.

Following Jesus' rule, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment," the Apostle Paul says: "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. ... Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: ... and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." Again Paul teaches, "That ye put off ... the old man ... and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." These quotations are in perfect harmony with the entire teaching of Jesus and his apostles, and illustrate the fundamental distinction made by Christian Science between the false self, the mortal, material man, and the true self, the real, spiritual man. Just in proportion as we turn away from the false self to the true self, shall we prove, God helping us, that all sin, sickness, sorrow, pain, and ultimately death, —"the last enemy that shall be destroyed,"—are but the house built upon the sand, and when the rain and the floods and winds of Truth beat upon that house, it falls, for it has no foundation, being only a false sense of Life, Truth. Intelligence, Substance, and power apart from and opposed to God. Thus the mortal, subject to sin, sickness, and death, is living in his false, unreal self, and when Christian Science awakens him to see its falsity, he turns from error to Truth and, finding in God his real self, he is thus freed from his former self-imposed bondage, being "born again" into his true heritage, "the glorious liberty of the children of God." To the "old man" sin, sickness, and death are realities, which, however, are only temporary, and which vanish into their native nothingness, when he awakes into the "new man" of God's creation. Evil can have no foundation in God, in whose Word we read, "I am the Lord; and there is none else, ... a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." Christ's salvation is, as he taught, a present salvation, not only from sin, but from sickness and ultimately from death.

In the Christian Science text-book we read (Science and Health, p. 127), "Man, governed by his Maker, having no other God,—planted on the Evangelist's statement that 'all things were made by him [the Word of God], and without him was not anything made that was made,'— can triumph over sin, sickness, and death." And this is daily in your midst proved to be true. Through God's power in Christian Science, the sinner is reformed, the infidel is reclaimed, the helpless invalid is restored to health, the deaf hear, the lame walk, and sight is restored. Truly, "The Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither his ear heavy, that it cannot hear;" and the heavenly Word is fulfilled: "Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ."