NO greater problems have been weighed in human thought than those concerning man's origin and destiny. These problems have possessed an imperishable interest for all peoples and during all ages known to history. The mightiest intellects, as well as the commonest of every generation, have pondered them in deepening awe. These problems belong to the literature of every age, and in their presence all other problems sink into insignificance. The readers of this periodical entertain many shades of religious and non-religious opinion. Some of them have witnessed so abundantly the evidential works furnished to this age through the Christian Science way of overcoming sin and sickness, and the shining verities which have been taught in the writings of the Founder of the Christian Science movement have become such an integral part of their thoughts, that they have ceased to be afflicted by doubts. They rest in secure and serene faith in God, and in man's blessed immortality as a spiritual being. Others may not have fully escaped from the fogs of materialism. They are able to catch occasional glimpses of the shining heights of Truth, but the gloom is still about them, while there may be yet others who still remain materialistic in their views respecting man and atheistic in respect to God.
As God is Spirit, He cannot be discerned by physical sense; and as man's immortality is the incident of his spiritual being, it may not be provable to our physical sense. Hence our proofs of these paramount verities can come to us only through revelation, spiritual discernment, and reasoning. The truths which are taught us through revelation, through spiritual discernment, and through right reasoning are neither variant nor conflicting. On the contrary, they are mutually corroborative and harmonious throughout. Religionists who decry or discourage sound and honest reasoning in religious inquiries lack an essential something in their faith in revelation and spiritual discernment, and efforts to discourage correct reasoning about religious problems have done vast injury to true religion.
There is need to remember also that careless, insincere, or sophistical reasoning in considering religious questions is capable of very great harm. Dogmatic assertions have too frequently usurped the place of careful argumentation, and it is matter for rejoicing that the purple robes in which religious dogmatism has appeared during so many centuries have been snatched from its shoulders and its arrogant scepter broken. The spirit of this age is rightly demanding that faith shall no longer have its eyes bandaged by ecclesiasticism. Appeals to superstitious credulity no longer succeed with the educated and thinking majorities; rather, they awaken suspicion and create distrust. Because of erroneous ecclesiastical methods the world is giving too little heed to-day to the authority of revelation and the value of spiritual discernment. Because of such erroneous methods men have been led, to no inconsiderable extent, to suppose that the Bible and religious faith are contradicted by correct reasoning, and in choosing between the two many are preferring to trust themselves to the guidance of reason. Every item of sound reasoning is to be welcomed which serves to show or illustrate that the Bible when correctly interpreted, and reason when correctly employed, are allies and not enemies, and Christian Science has already accomplished a work whose value to mankind is beyond estimate in thus helping to restore the essentials of Christian faith by establishing right habits of thinking.
