CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 146, 18 December 1933, Page 3

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

DEMONSTRABLE APPLICATION

A lecture on the demonstrable ap* plication of Christian Science was given; by AVilliam Duncan Kilpatrick, C.5.8., of Detroit, Michigan, at the Town Hall yesterday. The lecturer-is a member of the Board of Lectureship of Tha Mother Church, the First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts.

•To have proclaimed to. the world ia' an age of crass materialism that matter and tho material universe, including mortal o,r physical man, are simply pictures in individual human thought, figments of the carnal mind,! erroneous mental concepts, must have imvolved more spiritual vision and understanding; more courage,- more fidelity,'.mora faith in God and His word than ona can readily credit to any human being, said Mr. Kilpatrick. Yet that was what Mary Baker Eddy,-the discoverer, and founder; of Christian Science, did. Over fifty years ago Mrs_ Eddy, iv astonishing fearlessness and in, tho strength of a God-givOn conviction borii of divine revelation, proclaimed, to the world in her book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the textbook of Christian Science (p« 468): "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal truth; matter is mortal error. " Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His imaga and .likeness. Therefore man is not material; he. is spiritual." Whereupon, from every nook and corner in Christendom came condemnation and revilings. Pulpit and Press vied with each other, in anathema and invective. Nothing was left unsaid to proclaim Mrs. Eddy; an impostor, a dreamer, a fanatical visionary. She was spared nothjnjj. Physical science was invoked to prova her teachings valueless and mythical. To all but Mrs. Eddy, the five physical senses proclaimed to humanity the truth of being. That which could be ]seen, heard, tasted, smelled, and felt offered the only evidence of true existence. And was not physical science based and built upon that which the physical senses proclaimed as true! What foolish sophistry was this which argued tha nothingness of that which any mart could see, feel, taste,' smell, and hear? But Mrs. Eddy stooil her ground. She knew. AVith sublime faith ■ and .courage, urged by a conviction- born of a constant communion with God, sha stood, and nothing'moved her. Through-* out her entire life, a' life filled with hardship^. • disappointments, sorrows* and, at times, a heroic struggle for mera existence, the ,'Hdly Bible had been her constant, and.often her sole, companion. And now; after-all these years of prayer and'devotion to God, had come the true light, that light "which lighteth every} man that cometh into the world." She had glimpsed the sacred truths of existence. She had seen God and man ia their true and spiritual significanceGod, the Father, as divine Mind, and1 man, the son, as His idea. And after; she had fully proved.her discovery ta be the truth, by the healing of the sick and the reclaiming of the sinner, in tha manner of Jesus's appointing, she heralded her great message to the world ia her book, "Science and Health with. Key to the Scriptures," and there she stood —ono lone woman against' tha material opposition of church and scholasticism. , Behold that picture of fifty years ago, and then return withvus to the present time! "What do we find? An.ecclesiastical opposition softened by .love and understanding; a world more tolerant I and forgiving than it has ever been before, and,: strangest of all, the ranks: pt .the physical' scientists- proclaiming ta ■the world, in the ecstasy oft a newborndiscovery,, the nothingness, of ' the material universe, and its existence only; as thought. . ■ ■ • • : And thus do we begin to understand what Jesus jneant when he said, "Heaven and earth shall pass away:, but my words shall not pais away. • That is, this material concept of exist* ence must sooner,or later be completely overcome in tho consciousness of men' and be .replaced by the , understanding of what constitutes the true heaven an* the true earth, or spiritual creation.