RELIGION is a term which covers an immense field, ranging from the most primitive faith to the highest spiritual understanding. But wide as is the scope of religion, it may be defined, simply, as "any system of faith and worship." Analyze this definition, and it will be found to embrace all the widely divergent religious systems of men. And it is noteworthy that all such systems embrace "faith" and "worship," although the faith and the worship of different religionists may have little similarity to each other.
In Christendom, however, when one speaks of religion one almost invariably thinks of Christianity, the religion founded by Christ Jesus, notwithstanding that here also one is aware of the varieties of "faith" and of the different forms of "worship" that prevail. It would indeed be no small task to number the divisions or sects which claim to be Christian, which acclaim themselves followers of the Nazarene Prophet. And one must, accordingly, be very charitable towards those who differ from one in faith, in spiritual understanding, and in worship; for have we not all a common Father, and are not all men our neighbors, even as Jesus taught?
Christian Scientists can preserve a broad, wise charity towards differing religious systems, while firmly convinced of the rightness of their own. Whence do Christian Scientists come? Some from the doubting ranks of agnosticism, others from the entanglements of hopeless atheism; but the majority come from the churches, the Christian churches commonly called orthodox. What has brought them to Christian Science? Not the desire, surely, to separate themselves from their fellow Christians; not emotionalism or mere sentimentality, but the great impelling power of enlightened understanding; understanding which has shed a glorious light on existence, and which has revealed to them the living and true God and His image and likeness, man; understanding which has redeemed many of them from sin and healed them of disease, and which has given them a faith such as they had previously believed to be unattainable. And this faith has inspired in them profound adoration for God, enabling them to glorify Him and to worship Him "in spirit and in truth," thus conforming to Jesus' words, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth."
