Articles

There are few things more talked about these days than "'The Contusion of Creeds. " a fact which is no less sincerely deplored by those who are given to prayer than it is flippantly ridiculed by those who are given to destructive criticism.

To the sufferer turning as a last resort to Christian Science for help, Christian Science may mean simply another healing method to be tried. To the student of Christian Science, convinced of its truth and trying to advance in knowledge and practice, it means the revelation of divine law.

Jesus ' insistence upon the responsibility of the individual for the working out of his own salvation was very emphatically stated in his memorable words uttered in the upper chamber at the close of his last supper with his disciples. He had taught them for three years, proving and illustrating the truth he revealed by miracle and parable, and he had often emphasized the necessity for individual effort by saying, in effect: Go and do thou likewise.

The very first divergence from the absolute truth is in the more or less common acceptance of or compromise between the dual accounts of the creation of man in the first and second chapters of Genesis respectively, and the alertness of the metaphysician is needed to penetrate and expose the subtle illusion under which the world thoughtlessly labors, due to its blind submission to the supposedly binding laws arising therefrom. The two accounts differ to just this extent: that the first accounts for man as the spiritual creation in God's image, embodying the consequent completeness of the male and female qualities, the whole and consummate expression of God's being; while the second account portrays a material man formed "of the dust of the ground," lonesome and incomplete, necessitating the creation of a second or correlative, a woman, unto whom the man should cleave for his support and completion.

Christian Science is positive in its declaration that God, exhaustless power and intelligence, is all that governs and regulates the universe, including man. How encouraging it is to know that Mind adjusts all action, and since God is omnipotent, All-power, the individual is relieved of all so-called responsibility.

The Bible tells us that every true gift and every perfect gift is from God. The answer to the question: What is considered a true and perfect gift? will vary in accordance with the seeming human need.

The utility of oil is either to prevent or overcome difficulties. Oil is a decidedly needful element in human endeavor, in manufacture, in motive power, in lighting and heating, in nearly every activity that human invention has devised.

The great interest about the Bible is that it is the inspired utterance of Spirit, as well as the book of truth about human nature and human experience. The people in the Bible lived hundreds and thousands of years ago; perhaps they never lived under the familiar names by which we know them to-day, but their physical identity is immaterial, for what really is of value is their characteristics and the sort of lives they led and the kind of thoughts they had, and above all the experiences they passed through.

The standard for the higher criticism is healing—healing in its broadest signification, by which the entire sequence of the beliefs of material sense are subjected to the criticism that uncovers and destroys them. In the accepted theological use of the term, the higher criticism is applied to that literary and historical study of the Bible which analyzes the origin, composition, and authority of the texts with a view to establishing such facts of authorship and historicity as may be deduced from the internal evidence.

In his essay, "Of the Education of Children," Montaigne, having alluded to the plagiarisms of Chrysippus writes: "To reprove mine own faults in others seems to me no more insufferable than to reprehend (as I often do) those of others in myself. They ought to be accused everywhere and have all places of sanctuary taken from them.