Articles

With the rapid spread of Christian Science among the Jewish people, it is not surprising that frequent questions are asked of those interested, regarding the Christian Science standpoint as to the divinity of Jesus or the divinity of Christ. Other questions of similar purport are frequently asked, and it is better not to argue, or try to explain, as such explanation must necessarily be theoretical, and Christian Science does not deal with theories so much as with vital facts.

HUMBLE, childlike thankfulness is the first requisite in our warfare against financial limitation. This gives one a fixed determination to conquer and succeed which brings its inevitable result—prosperity.

AMONG all theories and philosophies about the nature of life and existence, those which have found sufficient evidence to warrant the assumption of a First Cause as the basis of all things,—one God, who is Spirit, who is eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, wholly good, and who is sole creator,—these present the fewest intellectual difficulties, though in many of them there are difficulties, and they are far and away the most productive of desirable practical results in the lives and experiences of those who hold them. This statement might be considered at length, and innumerable proofs of its truth offered; but all classes of Christians will admit its verity, and it is to those who are professed followers of Christ that we would speak.

LADY JANE GREY once said that "all amusements are but a shadow compared with the pleasure of reading the Bible. " Can professing Christians of to-day echo this sentiment concerning the great "Book of books"? Are there not too many who will tell you that they have to force themselves to read the Bible, and more from a sense of stern religious duty than from a feeling of real pleasure or satisfaction? Will not these same individuals tell you in all seriousness that they have earnestly and studiously endeavored to love the Bible, but failing in their efforts, have time and time again turned away from it to find pleasure and consolation in other directions? Many will also tell you that they were compelled by their parents to memorize whole chapters in the Bible, and to attend Sunday School where nothing was said or heard about a God who healeth all our diseases; and that as they grew into manhood and womanhood they had even turned away from the church of their fathers, half doubting the existence of the God about whom they had read.

THE Christian Church throughout its history has universally pictured Christ Jesus as "the man of sorrows. " This subject has always been a favorite one with the theologians; many a discourse has had for its theme the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, with its wonderful word painting, where in prophetic vision the Messiah is depicted as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.

AS in the days when Jesus was on earth, his gospel of healing is continually opposed by the representatives of hereditary doctrines to which the human mind gives the authority of precedent and law. Except for some refinements and variations, these formulations of so-called law are substantially the same as the articles of belief and the erroneous precepts which the Master was compelled to meet and master.

FAITH is a word used primarily to express the state of consciousness essential to religious teaching, and it is commonly differentiated from the understanding which is essential to the acceptance of scientific teaching or knowledge of truth. It is ordinarily thought that the understanding of physical science is an activity of the human mind based upon the testimony of material sense, and that therefore it is to be relied upon; while faith is regarded as a transcendental mental state, a spiritual attitude which accepts as a guide to eternal life theories about an unknown and unknowable God, and which bases its hope of salvation upon belief in the unexplainable miracles attending the life of Christ Jesus, who through a special gift from God was able to put aside the customary order of divine law for a specific time and purpose.

IT is not so many years since a noted infidel delivered a lecture on the above question, the published report of which was interspersed with the bracketed comments of his audience, such as "laughter," "renewed laughter," "roars of laughter," etc. Think of a set of mortals, conscious of the sad need of the world, making merry over the question that the relentless curse of sin and suffering has wrung from agonized lips since the beginning of time! Yet, in spite of their untimely mirth, in spite of the speaker's ridicule, there must have been in the hearts of both lecturer and people a pathetic yearning to know, after all, what can deliver mankind from their unhappiness and misery.

JESUS declared that the truth shall make us free; but there are unnumbered thousands of men and women throughout Christendom despairingly repeating the cry of Pilate of old, "What is truth?" It is evident, therefore, that somehow the world at large has not found the right way to truth. The world is filled with the complaint of the agnostic, who declares that he can affirm nothing and can deny nothing in respect to basic or ultimate truth; but in this initial statement agnosticism refutes itself, because the declaration that we can affirm nothing and can deny nothing is really an affirmation and a denial.

" THY sins be forgiven thee!" When Jesus made this bold statement to the sufferers who came asking him to have mercy upon them, what authority had he to forgive sins? How could he forgive them? We are taught in Christian Science that sins are forgiven only as they are destroyed, and how can any one destroy the sins of others? How can he bring about the mental condition in them which must accompany such a change? In Christian Science we learn, too, that to forgive never means to endure, but to do away with whatever is unlike God, to put it out of consciousness; to give the offending one a new likeness in our thought in place of the one formerly, and perhaps habitually, held of him. We can give him a true concept of himself only by holding such a concept in our own consciousness.