CHRISTIAN SCIENCE is with us to-day on no aggressive mission. It is not here to attack the faiths which others love, nor even to offer a new theology, but rather to give lovingly a reasonable and demonstrable explanation of the theology of Jesus. It comes to teach humanity the power of right thought. We hear on every side to-day of the power of thought. So-called mental science, hypnotism, esoteric magic, all set forth the power of thought, but no one can approach the subject honestly from that standpoint without realizing that power is attributed to evil as well as to good, and a read of the possibilities of evil is thereby aroused which grows with each hour.
Scholastic theology, most philosophies, and indeed religions generally teach the joy and peace of right thought and also the reward of right thought, and they think they teach the power of right thought; but they also assert that evil thought has power, and this is "a house divided against itself" and not a manifestation of the omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence of God. Christian Science alone teaches that only right thought has power, and that it is right thought only which heals the sick, reforms the sinner, and comforts the sorrowful. It teaches the meaning and the application of the admonition to humanity, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind." It teaches the powerlessness of an evil thought in the presence of right thought, just as physical science teaches the powerlessness of darkness in the presence of light; that since they cannot occupy the same place at the same time, it is always the positive which has dominion and presence. Just as no material scientist undertakes to read a book in the darkness, because he knows the unsubstantiality of that darkness, so no Christian Scientist will remain content with evil, because he understands its inherent powerlessness, that it is only the absence of good; but understanding Truth's supremacy, he will hasten to fill his consciousness with right thought.
Doubtless the most scientific healing done in Christian Science is that which is accomplished through the reading of our Leader's book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," when the power of right thought to banish illness by correcting the erroneous thought which had produced it is fully demonstrated. The process sometimes seems slow and the healing protracted, because a Christianly scientific cure must always be the result of the power of right thought over the wrong, and because Science makes no compromises and is absolutely impartial and impersonal. This is true in the healing of sin, as well as of sickness.
