Christian Science declares emphatically that "divine Love always has met, and always will meet, every human need" (Science and Health, p. 494). In conversing with the intelligent non-Scientist he will probably concede that Christian Science makes people healthy, but he may remark that this result does not alter economic conditions, and that his health only makes the worker a more valuable asset for his employer to grow rich upon. The Scientist might say, "Christian Science reforms the drunkard and makes him temperate in all things;" and to this it may be replied, "In some countries the people are very temperate, but that fact has not solved, the labor problem." The Scientist might say, "Alter the man and he alters his condition;" "Yes," it is answered, "but that solves only his own problem; the factory hand becomes a Christian Scientist and eventually gets a better position, some one else takes his place, and things are no better, no worse, for factory laborers." "I admit," he continues, "that sickness is something we need to get rid of, but to the reformer there is a more virulent evil which is productive of many deadly effects besides sickness, that evil is injustice; and I cannot see how Christian Science is going to do much to eradicate it." This condition of thought will give no anxiety to the Christian Scientist, who knows that "Science must go over the whole ground, and dig up every seed of error's sowing" (Science and Health, p. 79).
What is social reform, and what is the best method to achieve it? Social reform is the effort to abolish every form of evil to which humanity, as a collective body, is heir. It aims at equality of opportunity for every child and in every avenue of life. It declares that he that will not work neither shall he eat. It seeks the abolition of unfair profit systems and the provision of just recompense for just labor. It seeks equality of opportunity for every adult to discover what he is fitted for and to work at it like a Hercules; the substitution of mutual co-operation for selfish and greedy competition; the reformation and not the revengeful treatment of wrong doers.
In the interest of the public weal it demands proper sanitation, respect for the rights of others, and a wholesome regulation of all public institutions. To all these betterments a Christian Scientist would contribute his interest and efforts, because he knows that they are better "belief than those which they would supplant; but in his conception of the real value of these ideas and endeavors he differs from the ordinary social reformer. To the social reformer these better conditions are the real and ultimate requirements of human life; grant him these and other conditions of a similar nature, and he would expect to have an earthly paradise. He also thinks that there is a possibility of the establishment of these conditions and of their continuance, apart from Christian Science, because he has large faith in the good qualities of mankind irrespective of their recognition of the supreme Being, and he also has great faith in his peculiar method of obtaining and retaining these conditions.
