CHRISTIAN SCIENTISTS, because of their own experience in emerging from the darkness of despair into the light of a new and glorious hope, are never greatly surprised when they learn that some friend or acquaintance who has been bitterly opposed to their faith has finally seen the truth about it and been healed; therefore they will not marvel greatly over the case of Edward B. Lent, the well-known journalist, from whose statement, as published in the Christian Science Sentinel of March 26, we quote as follows: —
Seven years ago I "tried" Christian Science for one whole month. I could then see it was a fraud (everybody said so), and I ridiculed it in a chapter in this book, as I deemed it my duty to do. Two years ago, after wandering five years more and eight years altogether in the desert of matter, searching for the truth that would make me free, I was turned back to Christian Science by a woman with a copy of Science and Health and a Bible. Up to that time I had engaged upward Of thirty-five doctors and material healers, to say nothing of innumerable "cures," in my quest. When this woman reached out her helping hand I had dwelt in a far country about long enough, and of husks I had eaten to the point of yearning for my Father's house. For the past two years I have been keeping to the straight and narrow way which leads to the heights in Christian Science, and I have demonstrated much over the claims of ill-health, — enough to know that Mary Baker Eddy has established a church that will raise up a race of prophets and poets of the true order, immune to the fears of these days, and bring to this earth a full realization of the prayer, "Thy kingdom come." . . .
I learned that a mortal's faith, or his doctor's faith, in a drug saved him apparently, until his worship, often unconscious or subconscious, of that drug idol failed. The age of idolatry is here, and must be wiped out by knowing the truth that makes mortals free. The truth is that God never made discord; that a house divided against itself cannot stand; that a fountain cannot give forth both sweet water and bitter; we cannot serve both God and mammon. This is true science, but it is not yet taught at the universities of the land and logically applied to the smallest things of life. But it will be lived there, as elsewhere, when preaching gives way to doing. . . .
