Christian Science Church

“ Less than a generation ago there was not a Christian Science church in the land. To-day there are hundreds of such churches. The denomination has grown with a rapidity that is startling, and the end is not yet. ”

“ Scientific medicine is coming to reconsider its position and to realise its responsibilities. This synchronises with a broadening of the basis of Christian teaching. Without abandoning any of the cardinal tenets of their faith, the churches are coming to see that Christianity is a much more wonderful truth than they had ever dreamed; and, instead of there being any conflict between Christianity and science, science, like all work for the good of humanity, must be an integral part of the Church’s service to mankind. ”

“ They all range themselves naturally around the central idea that the submission of the human reason to Christian belief, and of the mind and heart to the authority of the Church, is quite compatible with original thinking of the highest order, and with that absolute freedom of investigation into physical science, which has only too often been said to be quite impossible to churchmen. ”

“ Scholastic theology at its best touches but the hem of Christian Science, shorn of all personality, wholly apart from human hypotheses, matter, creed and dogma, the lust of the flesh and the pride of power. Christian Science is the full idea of its divine Principle, God; it is forever based on Love, and it is demonstrated by perfect rules; it is unerring. Hence health, holiness, immortality, are its natural effects. The practitioner may fail, but the Science never. ”

“ It has also proved to me that there can be no Christian Science Church that does not heal the sick and sinful, for healing follows as the natural result of the teaching of Christian Science. The Bible has become a new revelation to me, and I can read it much more understandingly by the light received through the reading of Science and Health. ”

“ By reason of your spiritual achievement the Cause of Christian Science has been organized and maintained, its followers have been prospered, and the philosophy of the ages transformed. Recognizing the grand truth that God is the supreme cause of all the activities of legitimate existence, we also recognize that He has made known through your spiritual perception the substance of Christian Science, and that this church owes itself and its prosperity to the unbroken activity of your labors, which have been and will still be the pretext for our confident and favorable expectation. ”

“ Unprepossession and Religious Conviction. Is it possible for the Christian scientist who adheres to his faith, to be unprepossessed, as demanded by science? According to all that has been said hitherto about the relation of science to faith, the answer can be only in the affirmative. The believing Christian and Catholic looks upon the doctrines of faith taught him by revelation and the Church as an established truth. What to me is true and certain I can take for the true and certain basis and standard of my thought. ”

“ The Church-Christian science was and is the investigation of those circumstances by which man procures his salvation. The true Christian science, that which is but just at the birth, is the investigation of those circumstances by which man may become acquainted with the demands of the Supreme Will, whose instrument he is, and how he may fit them to his existence. ”

“ God speed the right! The wise builders will build on the stone at the head of the corner; and so Christian Science, the little leaven hid in three measures of meal, — ethics, medicine, and religion, — is rapidly fermenting, and enlightening the world with the glory of untrammelled truth. The present modifications in ecclesiasticism are an outcome of progress; dogmatism, relegated to the past, gives place to a more spiritual manifestation, wherein Christ is Alpha and Omega. It was an inherent characteristic of my nature, a kind of birthmark, to love the Church; and the Church once loved me. ”

“ Christian Science reinforces Christ's sayings and doings. The Principle of Christian Science demonstrates peace. Christianity is the chain of scientific being reappearing in all ages, maintaining its obvious correspondence with the Scriptures and uniting all periods in the design of God. ”

“ If evangelical churches refuse fellowship with the Church of Christ, Scientist, or with Christian Science, they must rest their opinions of Truth and Love on the evidences of the physical senses, rather than on the teaching and practice of Jesus, or the works of the Spirit. ”

“ All Christian churches have one bond of unity, one nucleus or point of convergence, one prayer,—the Lord's Prayer. It is matter for rejoicing that we unite in love, and in this sacred petition with every praying assembly on earth,—"Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven."
If the lives of Christian Scientists attest their fidelity to Truth, I predict that in the twentieth century every Christian church in our land, and a few in far-off lands, will approximate the understanding of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick in his name. ”

“ Is it likely that church-members have more faith in some Christian Scientist, whom they have perhaps never seen, and against whom they have been warned, than they have in their own accredited and orthodox pastors, whom they have seen, and been taught to love, trust, and revere? ”

“ This does not mean that natural [Pg 98] knowledge or culture is to be despised or avoided as evil, but that the two kinds of knowledge should be carefully distinguished. The Christian Church has at least for the last three hundred years set great store by knowledge and science, but deeper than all this is the spiritual instinct, insight, knowledge, and illumination which constitute the supreme requirement of the true Christian life. We can see this spiritual perception in its various stages in several passages of the New Testament. ”

“ The Catholic Church is thus prevented anew from taking any part in the great work of Christian science of our day, which consists in establishing a safeguard to the true canon of Holy Scripture by free and conscientious research. What confidence can we have in Catholic theology, on those points disputed by rationalism, like the authenticity of the fourth Gospel? Examination, even, is forbidden. Everything must be accepted in a lump. ”

“ I am happy to tell you that on last evening the Christian Scientists of Port Townsend voted to continue the War Relief Rooms as Christian Science Reading Rooms, and to organize a Christian Science church. The meeting was a very helpful one, a spirit of love and unity pervading all. We feel that the real church has appeared in consciousness and that we are building on Principle. I have promised to stay here two or three months and help get established ”

“ The development of the system of Christian doctrine must become a necessity when Christianity meeting with pagan culture in the form of science is called upon to defend her claim to be the universal religion. ”

“ In its advance from authority to freedom, the history of Christian theology supplies a parallel to that of science and that of the state. Christianity, based on the claim of its founder to be the Lord and Saviour of men, finds its strongest and most consistent exponent in the Roman Catholic Church. That Church presents its dogmas with absolute claims to truth and infallibility, and demands the complete submission of mind and will, as the representative on earth of the Divine Saviour. ”

“ At this day, when so many of our clergy and intelligent laymen are beginning to doubt the special inspiration of the Sacred Scriptures, a knowledge of the Science of Correspondences, in accordance with which they were written, is wanted above every thing else, that the Christian Church "may revive again and draw breath through heaven from the Lord." ”

“ I shall never forget the beautiful way our Welfare Worker stood with me during this trial.
“It was my privilege to be one of the readers in the Christian Science meetings held in camp. This position awakened me to see what it is to be a real Christian Scientist, and I am rejoicing daily in increased understanding.
“Christian Science is such a simple, demonstrable, practical religion. As each day passes and I know more of God who is Love and of man's relation to Him, my gratitude increases. ”

“ It is inevitable that the transforming influence of Christian Science should improve the thought, enlarge the favorable expectation, and augment the achievements of its followers. It was inevitable that this mighty impulse for good should have externalized itself, ten years ago, in an edifice for The Mother Church. It is inevitable that this same impulsion should now manifest itself in a beautiful, ample building, embodying the best of design, material, and situation. ”

“ In this deprivation of church services many of the Science boys sought the quiet of the woods or camp libraries to read the lesson-sermons by themselves, or if, perchance, they were fortunate enough to meet other Science boys, two or three would gather together in His name and hold informal meetings. This was possible of course, because, as the notice in our Quarterly puts it, “The Bible and the Christian Science textbook are our only preachers.” With these books in their hands, earnest Christian Scientists never need miss a church service. ”

“ Science has always been first met with denunciations. A fiction or a false philosophy flourishes for a time where Science gains no hearing. The followers of the Master in the early Christian centuries did just what he enjoined and what Christian Science makes practical to-day to those who abide in its teachings and build on its chief corner-stone. Our religious denominations interpret the Scriptures to fit a doctrine, but the doctrines taught by divine Science are founded squarely and only on the Scriptures. ”

“ Christian Science may be anything that its foes try to prove it to be, but that magnificent church, holding five thousand people, dedicated free from debt, and the centre of an enthusiasm and reverence of worship such as religious annals hardly parallel in modern times, is a tangible reality, and critics who seek the light must have done with scoffs and jeers if they would deal with the phenomenon with any effect. ”

“ Whosoever understands Christian Science knows beyond a doubt that its life-giving truths were preached and practised in the first century by him who proved their practicality, who uttered Christ's Sermon on the Mount, who taught his disciples the healing Christianity which applies to all ages, and who dated time. ”

“ A Scientist shall not endeavor to monopolize the healing work in any church or locality, to the exclusion of others, but all who understand the teachings of Christian Science are privileged to enter into this holy work, and "by their fruits ye shall know them." ”

“ It was this effort to do their best which resulted in the query from another relief organization handling their goods:
“Are all your workers trained sewers?”
“No.”
“Then how do you account for your work being so exceptional? I had always thought that Christian Science was an idealistic religion.”
“So it is,—a practical idealism; a religion which governs every act of our lives even to the sewing on of buttons. There is a perfect standard of sewing, and Christian Scientists having that before them when making these garments, do all to the glory of God.” ”

“ If our modern men of science would not travel out of their sphere, there would be no war between them and the church. In the name of the Catholic religion we invite them to push onward in the path of scientific discovery with the utmost energy and ardor of which they are capable. But if their discoveries are to have any bearing on the truths of the Christian revelation, we can accept nothing less than demonstration, and they must not credit science, as does Mr. ”

“ But that Christian Science is valid, simple, real, and self-evident, thousands upon thousands attest with their individual demonstrations. They have themselves been healed and have healed others by means of the Principle of Christian Science. ”

“ These ideas were vague, they were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and even amid the luxuriant growth of theology in the early Christian Church these germs began struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and these men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe. ”

“ The principle of the Catholic Church has ever been this: "By the knowledge of Divine things, and the guidance of an infallible teacher, the human mind must gain certainty in regard to the sublimest problems, the great questions of life: by them the origin, the end, the norm and limit of man's activity must be made known, for then alone can he venture fearlessly upon the sphere of human efforts, and human developments, and human science." And, truly, never has science gained the ascendancy outside of the Church that it has always held in the Church. ”

“ By this law, most full of wisdom, the Church by no means prevents or restrains the pursuit of biblical science. She, on the contrary, provides for its freedom from error, and greatly advances its real progress. A wide field lies open to any teacher, in which his hermeneutical skill may exercise itself with signal effect and for the welfare of the Church. ”

“ Let, then, all anxious but sincere doubters turn to Catholic doctors and Catholic books; let them hear the church—the old, calumniated church, the column of truth, the heir of the apostles, of the prophets, of the patriarchs, and the spouse of Christ. She will teach them how to reconcile reason with faith and religion with science, so as to believe rationally and consistently whatever God has revealed, while preserving the fullest liberty of judgment in regard to all other things. ”