It is now forty years since the Discoverer of Christian Science made known to the world the basic law of Christian healing: forty years in which the world has laughed, then looked, then come to listen. Clashes of learned minds, bitter legislative enactments, personal vituperation have all had their day, but the great work goes on. In geometrical progression its ranks are filling up, and churches which were a year ago ample in capacity are giving way for larger accommodations. The pulpit, the medical profession, hostile society at large have done their best to hinder the advance of Christian Science, yet in spite of all attacks this new-old religion does not seem even to have a struggle; to all intents and purposes it is not to be destroyed, its Principle is not to be changed.
Its Biblical foundation, its healing power, its claim that matter is unreal, these and %a hundred other points have all been challenged, and not the least among these mooted questions is that concerning the significance of its name, Christian Science. The writer's personal awakening upon this last point was so sudden and clear that it is briefly offered here, together with some statements and comparisons, in the hope that if there are any interested in the truth who do not fully understand this term, to them may be made clearer some scientific reasons for its use, and that perhaps they may see also how simple and comprehensible many of its perplexing questions become when viewed from the standpoint of established scientific law. During several years of study both in eastern and western institutions of learning the writer had covered almost every form in which a study is presented, although taking necessarily but few of the many subjects offered. At the end of that time, she had come to have greater respect for the sciences and their manner of presentation than for the methods and subjects of all other courses. Many of the studies, supposed to be profound, proved to be mere speculation, slippery ground, while others, such as logic and mathematics, gave not only the most admirable mental training, but offered for every definite statement made, a definite proof of its truth.
It was several years of invalidism and great suffering that goaded her into Christian Science. She had concerned herself, hitherto, neither with its methods nor the significance of its name, catching at it only as a last straw, in the hope of relief and health. After a bitter struggle and an inward opposition of several weeks its truth became gradually clearer, and she one day suddenly announced to her practitioner that she had made the astonishing discovery that Christian Science is scientific; and scientific it has proved itself to be, both in its Principle and in the method it propounds. It is indeed the Science of sciences.
