THE Hon. Charles C. Bonney, president of the World's Parliament of Religions, which was held in Chicago on the occasion of the World's Fair in 1893, declared that mankind had reached the state in which science was called infidel, although true science could never look otherwise than "through nature up to nature's God." Christian Scientists were therefore called to declare and emphasize the real harmony between religion and science, and to restore the waning faith of many in the verities of the sacred Scriptures. He added, "When Science becomes Christian, then the world indeed advances toward the millennial dawn," — "that happy day," as Mrs. Eddy terms it, "when man shall recognize the Science of Christ and love his neighbor as himself, — when he shall realize God's omnipotence and the healing power of the divine Love in what it has done and is doing for mankind" (Science and Health, p. 55).
The Century dictionary defines "science" as "knowledge; comprehension or understanding of facts or principles," the knowledge of things, whether ideal or substances. This definition amply justifies the application of the term to a knowledge of spiritual things, and we know of no authority for restricting its use to material things. Nevertheless, we are confronted with the fact that the knowledge of God which is gained from the study of the Scriptures, conflicts with the evidence of the personal senses, and for this reason material science and religion that is based upon spiritual understanding, have been at war for ages. St. Paul, with his clarified vision of the truth, observed this and said: "The flesh [materiality] lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other."
The discovery of Christian Science has brought the world more consciously into touch with this proposition, and students of moral science are called upon to choose which they will serve, spiritual understanding or the testimony of the material senses. There is a tendency on the part of some to disregard the spiritual and to confine the term science only to the material, while others, unwilling to abandon the spiritual, are in a dilemma because of the apparent antagonism between the spiritual and the material. Christian Science has come to the rescue. It has given us a true understanding of cause and effect, thus affording us a scientific line of demarcation between the true and the false, and has thereby harmonized science and Christianity. It has decided the question as to what is scientific according to the Master's teaching.
