THE message of Christian Science is simple and straightforward and responds to a universal need. It is not easily treated as an academic theme, nor is it, strictly speaking, a debatable question, because it provides the proofs of its own correctness, day by day and hour by hour, and these proofs are final and convincing. Christian Science does more than preach or promise, it fulfils. While it arouses the noblest aspirations and expectations of mankind, it also justifies its teachings by definite results. Like the good Samaritan, it comes to those who have fallen among thieves, whom false concepts have robbed of health and happiness, whom material methods have passed by on the other side, and pours into their wounds the oil and wine of gladness and inspiration, takes them to the inn of shelter, and leaves with them the coin of priceless value which will ensure their complete recovery and, in time, their complete salvation.
This is an age of practical achievement, and Christian Science is in thorough accord with the demand made for proofs. It lives and grows in favor with the needy of the earth by reason of its fruits. Christian Science makes no claim which it cannot substantiate, and so, in this day of advance in every department of human activity, it is demonstrating its right to be known as the religion of progress.
Not that God, who constitutes the basis, foundation, and Principle of all true religion, ever changes or progresses; not that the teachings of Jesus the Christ, the Founder of Christianity, need to be revised or the Bible rewritten. We read in the Scriptures that with God there is neither variableness nor shadow of turning: we also believe that the precepts and warnings of Jesus can never become antiquated, and that the Bible of our fathers, the great treasure-house of Christendom, when spiritually interpreted by Christian Science, suffices for our daily needs. The thread of gold which gleams throughout the fabric of the Bible will shine forth forever to be apprehended by the receptive thought everywhere. So it is not a new Bible which Christian Science contemplates, but one and the same Bible, explained in a spiritually progressive manner. It is not a new God which it proclaims, but the only true God, our Father which is in heaven. It makes no attempt at an improved Christ, for there is but one Christ, who is in the bosom of the Father, perfect, eternal, and indestructible. Christian Science is progressive, and marks an advance in religion because it throws the strong light of Science upon the nature and attributes of Deity, upon the teachings and works of the Christ, and because it makes clear and emphasizes the essential, imperishable import of the Bible's spiritual message.
