The student of history who approaches his subject in the light of Christian Science is early impressed with the evidence that underneath the surface conflict in human affairs, the steady, orderly, and irresistible unfolding of good is in process. As the clouds of conflicting theories clear away from any age and the proper perspective is obtained, the constructive work of Principle lies revealed to the seeing eye. Even in the mists of transition periods it is quite possible to discover the animating spirit of the forward urge, while the outlines of definite movements are yet veiled in obscurity. The advantage of such discovery lies in the fact that it enables one intelligently to cooperate with rather than resist the age current.
In the early nineteenth century it was evident that Anglo-Saxon thought was strongly setting toward new channels and was leading the world toward a transition period of great import. By the middle of the century every line of activity was beginning to respond to the new impulse. The most obvious manifestation of the tide was a constantly increasing number of mechanical inventions which were revolutionizing industry. By this time the spirit of the incoming period was definitely definable as "scientific" and the dominating movement was called an industrial revolution.
The thought of the preceding period was keyed to the Renaissance mood. It found expression in an ardent appreciation of the classics, an outburst of speculative philosophy, and in literature it reached its highest note in the Shakespearean drama. A generous devotion to authority, philosophic theorizing, and keen imagination characterized the mental attitude. Quite the reverse was the new scientific attitude. It cared not a whit for tradition, or what its ancestors thought. It met every theory with the blunt challenge, Will it work? Imagination found little range except in constructing hypotheses as a basis for experimentation. It was definitely in search of demonstrable truth, and its angle of vision was primarily the practical. Throughout the latter half of the century the Renaissance spirit rapidly ebbed, while the scientific was approaching flood tide and the opening years of the twentieth century found it dominating all development.
While the revolutionizing influence has been objectively most apparent in industry, not a single phase of thought or activity has escaped transformation. In the political world we are demanding a more real and practical democracy. Fine theories of equality no longer satisfy. Witness the efforts at political reform as embodied in the initiative, referendum, recall, woman's suffrage, direct primary, and so forth. It is still in the experimental stage, but there is no mistaking the tendency. In intellectual development, as gauged by the trend in education, the emphasis for a quarter of a century has been withdrawing from the classical thought and falling upon the scientific. A more practical training is demanded for our youth, and the expansion in all curricula, both in secondary schools and colleges, is on the side of applied science. In the social realm the scientific spirit has put some staggering questions to the existing order of things, and a readjustment in the relation of the sexes is in process which is bringing woman out of her age-long seclusion into the broad daylight of comradeship with man in every line of world activity.
But what of religion? Could this vitalizing, scientific impulse strike fire in every other direction and leave religion untouched? As well expect the sun in its shining to discriminate between the atoms of sap flowing in the veins of a leaf. The first effect of devotion to scientific research was a reaction against formulated religion. God could not be discovered through the microscope or test tube. He could be proved by no process known to physical science. The faith of religious sentiment offered no substantial footing. The physical scientist, therefore, was likely to accept atheism, or, if less courageous, take refuge in doubt.
As doubt began to find expression, religion armed itself for defense. It protested violently against any attempt to apply scientific methods within its sacred precincts, and much was heard of the conflict between science and theology. Meanwhile the layman in each camp found his intellectual grasp on religious beliefs and creeds loosening, while his heart, with an intensity that would not down, was silently yearning for a living God. The scientific spirit that was bringing greater physical ease and comfort and a new and happier era in every other direction was pulling irresistibly at his religious crutches and offering no support in their stead. It is not surprising, therefore, that toward the close of the century membership in the churches began to grow stationary and later to fall off. The established creeds had no satisfying answer for the inarticulate cry of humanity for a practical, provable, living God.
But as God has always met every human need, parallel with this rising tide of doubt there was steadily unfolding the revelation that was to prove the great answer to this cry of the age in religion. "In the year 1866," Mrs. Eddy writes, "I discovered the Christ Science or divine laws of Life, Truth, and Love, and named my discovery Christian Science" (Science and Health, p. 107). Coming not from the ranks of recognized science, theology, or medicine, and challenging their fundamental teachings and methods, Christian Science was ridiculed by all three and denied the right even to its name; but no storm of derision could ultimately cover the fact that this new Science fulfilled every requirement of the most exacting definition of the terms "science" and "Christian."
Christian Science is meeting the great need of humanity for a practical, demonstrable religion. Faith in the theoretical God of an outgrown age is giving place to an understanding of the Father-Mother God, divine Love, whose presence becomes the most tangible of all influences to His children through the healing of sin, disease, and all inharmony. The laws controlling health and happiness are discovered to be as exact as those governing mathematics, and equally available. As we read on page 298 of our textbook, "When the real is attained, which is announced by Science, joy is no longer a trembler, nor is hope a cheat." Instead of the most mystical of all human experiences, to the Christian Scientist religion has become the most practical and scientific.
Not only has Christian Science come as the complete fulfillment of the religious desires aroused by the scientific spirit of the age. but in turn it has revealed the fundamental laws upon which all science must finally build if it would reach ultimate truth in any direction. In spite of the apparent practical achievements of modern science, it is found to be based upon material belief instead of understood Principle. Christian Science involves no mere conjectures, and it shows plainly why material science must ever be unable to explain itself. The so-called sciences based on material belief must, therefore, ultimately yield before the one Science of Christianity, for truth is one and has but one source,—God. "Christianity must be Science, and Science must be Christianity," we read in Science and Health (p. 135), "else one or the other is false and useless; but neither is unimportant or untrue, and they are alike in demonstration. This proves the one to be identical with the other."
To many even from the ranks of material science, theology, and medicine this great fact is already evident, and history is rapidly recording the achievements which will ultimately crystallize the recognition by the world that Christian Science is the greatest scientific discovery of a supremely scientific age.
