Christian Scientists are frequently asked why, if they believe in the same God that other Christians do, and use the same Bible, they must needs have a separate and distinctive church; why they cannot retain their membership in the church in which they have been reared, even if they have decided to eschew the use of material remedies and dispense with medical attendance. The question would carry more weight were there only one church, but a large percentage of the membership of the Church of Christ, Scientist, has come from the multitude of churches whose varying creeds, based on this same Bible, have led them to separate themselves one from another and reared seemingly impassable walls between them.
History repeats itself. We have but to go back to the time of the early apostles to find this same question agitating church and state, "Why go they by themselves, seeking another path? Have not we the God of our fathers?" But Paul, divinely awakened to the fact that in his malignant pursuit of those whom he regarded as a menace to the common weal he was actually persecuting the authorized representative of Him to whose service he had consecrated himself, came to see the inadequacy of the faith of his fathers in comparison with the vital truth taught and exemplified by the Master. In consequence he gave himself over to the establishing of the Christian church, going from city to city to preach the new gospel of "works," the "fruits" which should be unmistakable evidence of the followers of Christ, and gathering the faithful together into churches, that they might strengthen each other and work unitedly for the promulgation and upbuilding of the cause.
Had the church thus established remained true to its trust, there had been no occasion for Christian Science, the church "designed to commemorate the word and works of the Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual of The Mother Church, p. 17) But the healing practised by the early Christians had gradually come to be regarded as a thing apart; the church was preaching the gospel, but it had relegated its equally important and inherent function of healing the sick to an outside and self-constituted authority.
