THERE are few things more degrading in their influence A upon character than mental dishonesty. It is the obsequient handmaid of ignorance and superstition, the subtly lying foe of personal integrity. It leads unnumbered men who are otherwise noble and Christian to dodge fundamental issues, and to say "I know," when in fact they do not, and its indulgence practically interdicts the possibility of progress. Hence the skepticism that arrays itself against sophistry, and that is reserved in accepting any inherited teaching until it is proved to be true, is of the greatest value to civilization, for it is the one thing that saves us all from the deadening dominance of those false beliefs which by virtue of their associations have come to be generally unquestioned if not revered.
Every man therefore is to be valued for his expression of honest doubt, for the questionings that compel us to reconsider whether or not we can give a reason which is satisfying either to ourselves or to others for the hope that is within us. Such a man, a sincere and deeply thoughtful student of Christian Science, was met with recently, and he voiced a query which many honest but less daring truth-seekers have no doubt suppressed to their hurt. He said: "How is it that we can declare the absolute and eternal oppositeness and separation of Spirit and matter, and yet accept the statement that Christ Jesus, whom Mrs. Eddy names 'the highest earthly representative of God' (Science and Health, p. 52) and who declared that his Father was responsible for his works, multiplied the loaves and fishes, that is, created matter to satisfy a fleshly appetite. If he had eliminated or satisfied the physical hunger, dispelled the law of material sense, by his spiritual power, then his 'work' would have been in keeping with the law of Truth's relation to error, of light's relation to darkness; but this bringing of a phase of falsity into helpful relation to Truth seems quite incongruous, and I cannot understand it."
In answer he was reminded that the apparent production of a material effect by a spiritual cause characterized the bulk of the so-called miracles as they are narrated in the gospels. The healing of the withered arm, the restoring of sight to the blind, etc., were instances in which a perfect organ was made to appear in the place of an imperfect one. This was the sense in all probability both of those who were healed and of those who witnessed the transformation. This too is the interpretation of these healing works which materialistic Christian thought has always given them.
