Carol Norton, C.S.D., of New York, New York
Member of the Board of Lectureship of The Mother
Church,
The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts
The rise and progress of the Christian Science movement throughout Christendom is without question the most unique phase of religious development during the last thirty-five years. The literal history of the movement is now too generally known to demand detailed recital. The public interest and the spirit of inquiry demand a clearer understanding of its teachings, purposes, and actual results. That honest interest may be lead along the highway of candid investigation to this goal of intellectual and spiritual mastery of the subject, let the principal ideas and purposes of Christian Science be briefly considered.
Christian Science as a scientific exposition of the science of being is stated and elucidated in the text-book of the system, written by its discoverer and founder, Mary Baker G. Eddy. This text-book, known as "Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures" bears the same relation to Christian Science as a system of scientific religion and physical and moral healing that the four gospels, together with the whole Bible, bear to the physical and moral healing of Christianity as founded, lived and taught by Jesus Christ. The Bible, especially the teachings of Christ contained in the four gospels of the New Testament, can be said to be the text-book of Christianity. "Science and Health, With Key to the Scriptures," in the same sense, is the text-book of Christian Science, and in the affections of the followers of this faith takes its place next to the Bible.
Human nature is essentially the same the universe over. The needs of one generation are in great degree handed down to the next. Sin, disease, pain and death persist from one era to another. The dismal funeral train of mortal experience wends its weary sad length along the roadway of these conditions with their heartbreaking, sorrowful ramifications. All natures love life, and life is forever to their hearts and hopes an ideal of sweetness, not bitterness; of continuous life, not separating death; of health and plenty and joy instead of disease, pain, poverty and sorrow. Jew and Gentile, Christian and agnostic, materialist, unbeliever, and Eastern mystic, blend in a united heart's yearning, and pray with the prayer of incessant desire that delivering light shall be thrown upon the great trinity of human experience known as sin, disease and death. Man's nature cannot reconcile itself to these abnormities of existence. The normal instincts of the men and women of this world are spiritual or mental, not material and physical.
If progress is the law of universal nature it is certainly the law of individual history and character. Therefore the aggregate progress in good and righteousness, in law, order, and brotherhood in the world, is but the sum total of individual progress in these virtues and character forces. As the child yearns for and cries for its mother because it has a mother, and instinctively knows that she exists, so the longing of the soul or spiritual sense for an understanding of the immortal and perfect Life proves that this Life exists and in some way is to be practically attained. Lowell wrote truly when he said: "Perhaps the longing to be so helps make the soul immortal." Man's natural resentment to the thought of perpetual pain, hopeless disease and the continued triumphs of lawlessness, cruelty, depravity and sin, all prove these conditions unnatural and temporary. The great life question here enters the heart of childhood, youth, age and maturity alike: What can be done to escape the seeming inevitability of suffering?
The age demands a universal, world-sense of the religion of Jesus, hence science and religion must be reconciled. Theology must be proven to be the science of the Theos, the Logos, Word or God, the Principle of the universe. Religion can no longer be made to consist of man-made creeds, doctrines, mysticism and outward ecclesiastical ceremonial. Religious life must be lifted above the plane of abstract faith, sentimental belief and theological speculation.
Sectarianism and denominationalism in Christendom are called upon to give place to the brotherhood of man and obedience to the two great commandments, love to God and love to man. Unfriendly competition between the churches must give way to that spiritual consolidation and co-operation which has its counterpart in the industrial unity now going on throughout the world. Men are solemnly asked to put principle above person and partisanship; righteous methods above questionable ones, and quality above quantity.
Centralization of power in industry, religion and government must guard against the temptation to dominate person to such an extent that individual independence be temporarily subjugated. On the other hand it must be recognized that the tendency toward general consolidation in all walks of life is being more and more safeguarded by the introduction of the element of co-operation which is destined to heal the gulf between class and class and evolve such a condition of righteous equalization of talent, forces, capital and labor, as will reveal the great fact that the ethics of Christ are destined to rule the world of industry as well as that of religion. Then the operation of spiritual law will rule bodily health as well as that of spiritual development.
The propositions of Christian Science are reasonable. They appeal to the mind as well as to the heart, to logic as well as to true human longing. There are many unseen causes which lead men into willing as well as unwilling servitude to sin. Among the cardinal causes which afflict humankind in the world of to-day Christian Science names the following: Undue love of money and the personal, political, social and individual temporary power that it gives. Wrong sources of pleasure, such as the mild intoxication of tobacco, which in so many cases leads to the greater bondage produced by liquor, and the deeper intoxication of drug habits and animalism. As further causes of present-day misery Christian Science enumerates human selfishness, lust of power, and greed for personal possessions. The extreme indulgence of such disease and discord-creating thoughts as personal criticism, snap-shot judgment, circulation of scandal and hearsay, carelessness as to the laws of pure thinking and right living, laxity in dealing with questions of public conscience and public opinion, immoral literature, exaggerated portrayals of crime and human passion in modern publications, especially in novels, the detailed recital of symptomic diseased conditions of the body in newspapers and magazines, advertising vivid reports of suicide, murder, criminal activity and human depravity, undue publicity in reporting the proceedings of criminal courts, and unwise and untrue utterances put forth in the name of governmental reform, which exaggerate the real conditions of both rich and poor, capital and labor, thereby tending to create class strife and arouse latent human jealousies.
Hours could be spent in giving a fuller analysis of present-day menaces to the best interests of man's moral progress and physical health, but enough has been recorded to show the elements which Christian Science uncovers as cardinal errors, in order that they may be eliminated from individual consciousness by the gradual acquisition of the mind of the Master.
The moral reformation of man begins and ends in mentality. The spiritual progress and best interests of man center and end in consciousness.
Careful observers of the signs of the times in current thought often criticise and in many instances immoderately condemn the apparent radicalism with which metaphysical views of life are being promulgated. Religionists, scientists and physicians have so long dealt with the problem of man's existence, spiritual progress and health as a wholly physical proposition that their thought is not at once initiated into the practicability and provable truth of metaphysical philosophy. But in fairness to all who in modern days believe in metaphysics rather than physics, and who accept the philosophy of mental idealism while rejecting the old evolutionary philosophy of causative matter, obtainable proofs, both ocular and ethical, should be thoughtfully observed and what they prove be denominated as confirmed.
The pendulum of metaphysical healing, spiritual regeneration and scientific Christian teaching is gradually, but surely, swinging back into that intermediate place, which is the only sure standing ground for the individual who would gain the real significance of the teaching of the Christian Science text-book and approach the liberality, common sense, and wise conservatism of Mary Baker Eddy.
The reappearance in human affairs of a lost art invariably meets, not only with opposition, but oft times with temporary rejection. That which is as old as the everlasting hills because for a while lost sight of is erroneously hailed as something new and revolutionary. The religiously catholic is denominated heterdox, and the beneficial for a time considered as harmful. The moral reformers throughout the ages encounter the same obstacles, though in differing forms. Prejudice, conservatism and ignorance intrench themselves behind walls of unjust criticism, blind rejection, and doubting investigation. But the march of events and the accumulation of evidence gradually permeates the thought which arrays itself against its own best interests and progress takes the place of both stagnation and retrogression.
Thus the best hopes of the race will be realized. The day-dawn of a better order of things now lightens the East. It must not be forgotten that the noble army of martyrs in all ages and the grand army of reformers have worked together even until now for the best interests of humanity. Emerson named ideas as the rulers of the world. Men can remain serfs to bad ideas, to unhealthy ideas, to materialistic ideas, or rise to the dominion of sonship with the Most High by giving themselves wholly up to the service of that which is noble, pure, loving and righteous.
One of the best things about Christian Science is that it has but a single text-book. The ancient writer spoke truly when he said, "Of making of many books there is no end." Down through the centuries the majority of the world's thought-leaders have been voluminous writers. Students of their ideas have in repeated instances been literally buried under an avalanche of ideas, lengthy and involved deductions and volumes of theories. The spiritually unique and divine life of the Founder of Christianity stands forth in the brief gospel narratives as a giant cedar against the glorious coloring of an Oriental afterglow. The originality, method, simplicity and provable character of Christian Science stands out in the Christian Science text-book in the bold relief of simplicity of statement and brevity of deduction. This is its strength. While Mrs. Eddy has written other books, and for years has continued to record the unfoldings of this spiritual science which she has interpreted to the world, yet among the religious leaders of history she cannot be called a voluminous writer.
If simplicity is the highest form of eloquence it is certainly the truest evidence of inspiration and truth. Intense loyalty to the spiritual significance of the Bible, firm adherence to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, unchanging spiritual attachment to the idea of one God, one brotherhood of man, and the power of the spiritual over the material and physical, these character traits are conspicuous in the life and teachings of Mary Baker Eddy. These virtues of Christian womanhood account for her dignified success as a spiritual teacher, and give her rank as the foremost woman religious leader of Christian history.
Jesus Christ taught an essentially democratic ideal of spiritual or mental brotherhood among men. He never posed as an absolute monarch, nor did he have any ambition to be looked upon in either a temporal or spiritual way as a crowned head. He prayed that all his followers might be as much one with the Father as he was, that all might be with him wherever he went, that God would show his fatherly affection to all as much as to him. The outpourings of his great heart as shown in the Gospels account for his being "the man-ideal" of the most advanced civilization that this vast world has ever known.
He conquered his enemies through merciful kindness and forgiving affection and thus made friends of them. He took his disciples, students and friends into his confidence, trusted them, and thus gained their co-operation and intelligent loyalty. While his vision went far beyond that of those nearest him, yet with exquisite poise and delicacy he adjusted his words and acts to their limited perception, and left to their keeping the message which to-day inspires the most advanced nations of earth. The Spirit of Christ is abroad and the divine democracy of Jesus is renewedly in our midst to-day.
The golden rule of treating all men as men desire to be treated is even now becoming the basis of industrial as well as religious activity. His message of physical healing through the practical work of Christian Science has again been wedded to his message of moral and spiritual regeneration. The spirit of greed and commercialism which would make the master of finance and of millions the most observed type of the present generation will find no more in the religion of Jesus to-day than did the money-changers in his proclamations of spiritual loyalty to lives that were rich in works rather than in possessions.
The world needs more health with lessening disease, pain and misery, more dominion and less servitude, more independent individuality and less domination, monopoly and arbitrary control, more character and less profession, more insight and less duplicity, an increased understanding of the command of Christ, "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's," fewer churches and more religion, more united brotherhood and co-operation and less strife, unholy competition and contention. Love, patience, mercy, justice and kindness crown the teaching of Christian Science, the Christ model is its only ideal, and heaven or harmony, with dominion over sin, sickness and death is its ultimate goal.
[1901.]