ALL who have been born and nurtured in Christian homes, and who have been led to think of the church as a sacred institution which sustains a vital relation to the world's redemption, can but be pained as they note the harsh and ofttimes irreverent criticism to which its teaching is being subjected at the hands of scholarly men today. Both religious and philosophical publications, as well as secular periodicals, teem with articles in which Christian views which have been accepted unquestioningly for centuries are dissected and discarded in a way that must seem shocking and cruel to those who venerate the belief of their fathers.
Christian Scientists who were once actively identified with other Christian churches, and who are still bound to them by many ties of affection, can fully appreciate the sting of such criticism, though they recognize that it is inevitable and that, in so far as it is considerate and just, it must hasten the acceptance of a nobler, more inspiring faith. Mrs. Eddy has often referred to her deep interest in the church of her childhood, her abiding respect and love for its people, and yet in standing for demonstrable spiritual truth she has necessarily had to be no less frank and fearless than courteous and kindly in her criticism of prevailing religious beliefs.
The call of the ancient prophet of God, "Come now, and let us reason together." and Christ Jesus' constant appeal to the intelligence, the consistent thought of his hearers, compels the inference that correct statements of divine truth are above criticism, for the reason that they are grounded in Principle, in eternal Truth, and are logical, intelligible, and consistent. From this the conclusion is irresistible that if the teaching of Christ Jesus were worthily expressed and practically demonstrated, the occasions of the dissatisfaction and protest of cultivated thought would be removed. The statements of truth cannot prove acceptable, of course, to those who do not rightly apprehend their meaning, and this abundantly explains Christ Jesus' constant reiteration of the fundamentals of his gospel, his unnumbered parables, and his ever-varying illustrations of such basic themes as the nature of God and His universe, of man and his mission, of the human problem and its solution, and of evil and its asserted law and authority. Inconsistent and undemonstrable opinions about these things have always handicapped the appeal of Christian teaching to the more intellectual classes, and while it is certainly true today that Christian believers are rapidly escaping from many of the grosser fallacies of scholastic theology, it is no less true that much Christian teaching is still an offense to a great body of logically-minded truth-seekers.
