Page:Historical Sketch of Christian Science.pdf/31

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
26
HISTORICAL SKETCH OF

right. Let there be milk for babes, but let not the milk be adulterated. Unless this method be pursued, the Science of Christian Healing will again be lost, and human suffering will increase.

This century, blessed with the advent of Metaphysical Healing, of Christian Science, is also cursed, as all others have been,, with false notions, and with false teachers and healers, who are wilfully ignorant of the whole subject, or who claim to understand and demonstrate that of which they apprehend but a fraction, — who multiply words without knowledge, and support matter, instead of subduing the earth as the Scripture demands. They know enough to render their error and ignorance more plausible; but it is not therefore less dangerous.

Quack teachers, healers, and authors are flooding the community with their mental mixtures and mistakes, brazenly calling them Metaphysics and Christian Science. Unscientific theory and wrong mental practice are more fatal to sanitary reform, sound morals, health, and longevity than aught else can be,— even more so than the old-fashioned empirical treatment, by blood-letting, poisonous drugs, and the other multifarious modes of frightening people to death.

If so-called Evangelical churches refuse fellowship with the Church of Christ, or Christian Science, they must rest their opinions of Truth and Love on the evidences of the senses, rather than on the works of the Spirit. Ritualism and dogma lead to self-righteousness and bigotry, which freeze out the spiritual element. Pharisaism killeth; Spirit giveth Life. The odors of persecution, tobacco, and alcchol are not the sweet-smelling savor of Truth and Love. Feasting the senses, gratification of appetite and passion, have no warrant in the Gospel or the Decalogue. Mortals must take up the cross if they would follow Christ, and “they who worship the Father must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.”

The Jewish religion was not spiritual; hence Jesus denounced it. If the religion of today is constituted of