Articles

Any business man will tell you that the more he knows about his business, the more likely he is to succeed in it. It may be laid down as a self-evident proposition that when one is unfamiliar with the details of his business, or when lie leaves it to some one else to manage, there is often shipwreck of his fortunes.

Christian Science demonstrates its value in the world by healing men of their diseases and sins; and this demonstration rests upon a profound and harmonizing philosophy which heals reason of its inner conflicts. Reason has the inherent three-fold capacity to know, to will, and to feel; but these elements in the human reason have from time immemorial been at strife, a strife which in its most painful aspects has shown itself in the old question of theodicy: How can a good God create a world so full of evil and sin, such as universal experience proves our world to be? From the earliest times men have looked up to the heavenly powers as beneficent, and recognized in them the source of all earthly blessings.

There is in philosophy no problem more baffling, and in biology none more hopeless, than the problem of consciousness. The discovery by Mrs.

Although the Christian Science teaching, that a material sense of man and things is not real because not of God (Spirit), is largely rejected, the experience of mortals compels them to admit that from the material side they derive no unmixed or permanent good, but instead an almost endless succession of disappointments, sorrows, pains, diseases, and miseries. Their objection to the statement of matter's unreality is thus shown to be groundless, for that which metes out such evil conditions to men must stand self-condemned before God, from whom only good can come.

Sometimes certain words in the Bible stand out with startling clearness, especially if we come across them at a time when our thought is open to receive a new idea of Truth. The word "therefore" is one of these.

Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed. —Jeremiah.

Primitive peoples personify all the phenomena of nature. In time these personifications become real persons to the great majority, and while men like Julius Caesar ridicule the belief in the gods, they secretly consult them in time of need, as he did before engaging in battle.

An editorial in The Daily Oregonian of June 10, 1906, in commenting upon the distinctive features of the Christian Science movement makes a statement concerning the practice of Christian Science which may be pondered with profit. The premise from which the editor's conclusion is drawn, the mistaken assumption that Christian Science in its idealism is in any way based upon Berkeley's philosophy, is at once challenged by the reader who understands somewhat of Christian Science, but the deduction in the editorial is interesting and straight to the point, and for that reason the paragraph is here quoted.

In the book of Job we read that when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, Satan came also among them. When asked if he had considered the uprightness of Job, Satan answered, "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will be give for his life," implying that men value more highly than all else the sense of life which they possess.

The secret of one day that is really happy will serve for all days, because it will go below the incidents or chances of time and draw upon permanent and fundamental laws of conduct and character. The secret is complex like the rainbow, and I will name but one strand of the twisted light.