In childhood the writer often faced the question: What difference does it make what you believe in, so long as you believe in it,—that is, so long as you have faith in it as an ideal by which you can lift yourself up? To you, it must be good. She thus grew up with the comfortable assurance that all religions, including idolatry, were good for those who believed in them and honestly practiced them,—and would ultimately result in good. This theory was further advanced in her family, along the line of letting well enough alone. Peace was to be kept by way of not noticing error, certainly not criticizing it. "Then let us all rejoice and sing, and make the best of everything," was an oft repeated motto.
But through this child's unformed thought always arose the question: How can anything make for good, if there is evil in it,—especially if that evil is allowed to continue uncorrected? For instance, how could a box of apples be counted safe, and so tucked away in the storeroom, if there was even one unsound apple in it? How could conscience or consciousness be peaceful if it housed a rankling thought? Touching such condition the Bible clearly stated to her, "I came not to send peace, but a sword:" and yet, basing the theory upon the Master's command to "agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him," it came to be adopted as finally conclusive that the adversary, when met, was to be accounted as a friend, not as an adversary, and thus agreed with. Such contradictions were never cleared away to her satisfaction, and such questions never pertinently answered until they were answered in Christian Science.
To her at first, as to others, Christian Science was merely a new branch of an old Christianity. And why a new one? Were there not branches enough already? Why more money wasted on new church buildings when there were more of them now than could be filled? But one day the teaching of Christian Science was discerned by her, and it proved itself to be true; proved its right to be, to exist; and if it were not received in the old churches and among the old divided branches of Christianity, it gave a sufficient reason for its compelling impulsion to establish itself on new ground. Wherein lay the difference between these teachings? Wherein lay that which separated the new from the old—that which promised and fulfilled a something which drew from the old to the new those who flocked to its embrace? Wherein lay the difference that resulted in the newly built churches, overflowing with eager, expectant faces. In a word, wherein lay the difference between scholastic theology and Christian Science?
