Among the definitions of church, given in Webster's dictionary, are the following: "A building set apart for public Christian worship. A formally organized body of Christian believers worshiping together." In thinking of the Christian church and its activities, one's thought naturally goes back to Jesus of Nazareth and his words and works. And it is interesting now nearly two thousand years after he founded the Christian church, to see how far that church is doing the works he did and intended that it and its members should do. Jesus healed the sick, reformed the sinner, fed the multitude, and raised the dead, and said, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." That this was not an impossible demand on the church is seen by the fact that history records that for nearly three hundred years after the crucifixion the members of the early Christian church did heal the sick.
That Christian Scientists throughout the world are to-day healing sickness and disease of every kind, together with discord and sorrow of every name and nature, is a fact too well known to need any support here. If, therefore, the members of the Christian Science church are doing the works of the Master, it is not only exceedingly interesting but exceedingly profitable as well to find out why. It would be absurd to say that other Christians are not equally as sincere as Christian Scientists, or as self-sacrificing, or that they are not as desirous of following the teachings of Jesus and of entering the kingdom of heaven. Therefore the only possible reason why one does the works of Jesus and another does not must be a difference in the understanding of what his teachings were.
Let us see, therefore, what Christian Science says about church and how that compares with the teachings of Christ Jesus. Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, on page 583 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science, gives the following definition of church: "Church, The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle. The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick." In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew we find Jesus asking his disciples, "But whom say ye that I am?" Peter answered, "Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." To this Jesus replied, "And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Jesus, therefore, was founding his church on spiritual sense, and "Spiritual sense," Mrs. Eddy tells us (Science and Health, p. 209), "is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God."
