CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 13, 17 January 1933, Page 12

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

WHAT IT STANDS FOR

PRINCIPLES EXPLAINED

A lecture on the principle of Christian" Science was given in the Town Hall on Sunday afternoon by Mr. Ralph B. Seholfield, of London, a member of the* Board of Lectureship of the Mother Church, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Scholfield quoted '-Science and Health with Key "to the Scriptures" (p. 470), where Mrs. Eddy writes: "The standard of perfection was originally God and man. Has God taken down His own standard, and has man fallen?" Christian Science denned God as "infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love." And -so Christian Science maintained that God had not taken down His own standard of perfection, because He cannot do so, and because with Him is "no variableness, neither shadow of turning." Christian Science, maintains that perfect man never can fall from perfection, for the omnipotence of God and the law of Life, or God, sustain him. The Psalmist had said: "Thou hast made Mm a little lower than the a-ngels. . . . Thou, hast put all things under his feet." "By healing blindness, deafness, palsy, and dumbness Jesus showed, that the true senses of man are not in the nerves or in matter, but that they are spiritual," continued the speaker. "Hence spiritual understanding and spiritual perception constitute man's true senses.' Being based on God, or Mind, they cannot be lost or' destroyed. "The preventive and the curative methods of Christian Science are contained in a. knowledge of ' perfection. Mrs. Eddy explains this in 'Science and Health': 'The Christlike understanding of scientific being and Divine healing includes a perfect prin-. eiple and idea—-perfect' God and perfect man —-as the basis of thought and demonstration.' "Was not this the standpoint that Jesus took?" said Mr. Seholfield. "To Him disease cannot have been a divinely constituted power. His authority over it was so definite, and His Tebuke. of it so strong, that this authority can have been no" less than" the eternal dominion of good over evil, knowledge over ignorance. As far as we can tell, He never reasoned with others about the reality or power of disease-, but He did. indicate that true 'prayer would heal it. Christian Science says that true prayer is based on certainty, and not on doubt. . , "To learn something of the life of the founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, we must look around at what she built,", said Mr. Seholfield. "Her life was devoted to the building of n church, not merely as a material edifice, but as a structure of reality, of spiritual understanding, whereby the unreal is separated, from the real: evil from good; the false from the true.". ' '■■■.-_.■ The lecturer quoted Mrs. Eddy's definition of the word Church ("Science and Health," p. 583): "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine principle. The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, Tousing thfi dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick." Further lectures will be given to-^ night and v on Thursday■•■ evening at: eight o'clock in the Town Hall.