It is very well known that when Mrs. Eddy attached the word Science to Christianity there were many protests, and occasionally criticisms of this sort are heard even now. On page 17 of the Manual of The Mother Church we read that early in 1879 "a church without creeds" was formed by Mrs. Eddy and her students, and was called "Church of Christ, Scientist." Its purpose was defined as follows: "To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing." It is hardly necessary to remind students of Christian Science that this exalted purpose has never been lost sight of by the membership of The Mother Church in the thirty-nine years of its history, nor indeed can it ever be disregarded so long as a visible organization is required to meet human needs. Although there has been great opposition on the part of theologians to the use of the term science as applied to Christianity, those who are healed in Christian Science are fully aware of the reason for the application of spiritual Science to the sore needs of humanity.
It is noteworthy that about the time when Mrs. Eddy's discovery was given to the world there was a great revival of interest in so-called natural science, and although some spiritually minded people hoped that a new impetus would be given to religion thereby, the result was the very opposite, because the vaunted discoveries of that period were all along material lines, and the atom and physical force became, as it were, a final court of appeal. As a result of the scientific investigation of that period there came the germ theory and a more general study of the phenomena of disease; so it can readily be seen that the distance between physical science and Christian Science was ever increasing from the initial point of divergence. The study of disease and of diseased organisms has not only been regarded as the starting point in medical methods of cure, but the more advanced research of physicians has always been along these lines, whereas the Christian Science practitioner finds that he can never afford to lose sight of Christ Jesus' words which define the purpose of his ministry, namely, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly."
Professor Drummond, one of the most deeply spiritual thinkers to be found outside of the ranks of Christian Scientists, has this to say respecting life, "It [nature] cannot say what spiritual Life is. Indeed what natural life is remains unknown, and the word life still wanders through science without a definition." In presenting the teachings of spiritual Science,—the Science of being,—Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 428): "We should consecrate existence, not 'to the unknown God' whom we 'ignorantly worship,' but to the eternal builder, the everlasting Father, to the Life which mortal sense cannot impair nor mortal belief destroy." On the same page she adds: "We must hold forever the consciousness of existence, and sooner or later, through Christ and Christian Science, we must master sin and death."
