THERE are those in our midst who are under the entirely erroneous impression that Christian Science is not Christianity. They will admit the healings that are wrought through Christian Science, healings of disease, sin, sorrow, and lack, but these healings they believe to be the effect of the so-called human mind, and not the result of anything essentially Christian. And in support of their attitude they may point to various mental-healing methods in vogue to-day, notwithstanding the fact that the results of such methods bear no comparison with those obtained through Christian Science, and although almost all, if not all, of these human systems have appeared since Christian Science was discovered by Mrs. Eddy in 1866.
Now, it should be said at once that Christian Science is not a mode of healing by means of the human so-called mind. Christian Science teaches the truth about divine Mind, teaches the nature of divine Mind, its omnipotence, omnipresence, and omniscience, and shows how this truth can be applied to whatever problem may be troubling one, in order to solve it. In doing so, Christian Science makes it perfectly clear that the highest idealism—idealism impossible to thought spiritually unillumined —should characterize whosoever would practice Christian Science successfully. No one who makes a careful study of Mrs. Eddy's writings can fail to acknowledge this; and the following, which may be found on page 5 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," entirely substantiates it. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The First Commandment of the Hebrew Decalogue, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' and the Golden Rule are the all-in-all of Christian Science. They are the spiritual idealism and realism which, when realized, constitute a Christian Scientist, heal the sick, reform the sinner, and rob the grave of its victory." And the Golden Rule as given by the Master in the Sermon on the Mount is, "All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
The all-in-all, then, of Christian Science is, briefly, love to God and one's fellow-men. And the practice of this love underlies every healing which takes place in genuine Christian Science practice. If Christian Science, which insists on the idealism of the First Commandment and the Golden Rule, be not Christian, what is Christianity? The fact is that the critics of Christian Science are too often blinded by prejudice, or too often handled by suggestions of evil in ways they are ignorant of, to judge righteously of what is rapidly coming to be recognized by mankind in general as the very religion practiced by Christ Jesus.
