CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20093, 24 November 1930, Page 17

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.

TO THE EDITOR 03? TUE PRESS. Sir,—Surely Mr Cuthbort Booth does not understand the first thing fibout Christian Science, when he makes the statement in Wednesday's I'ress- "In 110 way does it depart from the teaching of Christ Jesus." On the contrary, it denies almost every great Scripture truth, as even the most cursory reading of "Science and Health," the Christian .Science test-book, will prove. In the 1903 edition, page 113, the following are Mrs Eddy's "four Basic Propositions," which the reader may find rather difficult to understand. First, "God is all in all." Second, [|G°d is (good, good is mind," third, "Spirit being all, nothing is matter." fourth, "Liie, God, omnipotent good, (l. nv death, evil, sin, disease—disease, Mn, evil, death, deny good omnipotent, Uod, life." And, quite unconscious of any absurdity, she tells us that, because these statements may be read backward as well as forward it is pi oof that they are true! Uy the same method of argument ono could as easily prove that men, women, boys, and girls are bumble bees, humming birds, guinea pigs, and tadpoles. Dr. I. M. Haldemin, pastor of the First Baptist Church, New Yprk > «juimsj,up fins ciilt as follows: Science has one aim, to take away Jesue C hrist as the alone f>aviour of men. it denies His actual birth, repudiates Him ns the Christ, makes Him to be as full of errors ns other mortals, rejects the Atonoment, says Ho never died, never was buried, and never rose, does not exnlt His name above every name, refuses to bow to Him as I.ord and God, teaches that He docs not sit upon the infinite Throne, and that He is not in Heaven at all. In fact it turns His Body into an apparition, His blood to nothingness, His Cross to a myth. His death to a fiction, His burial to a mockery, and Himself to a personality that never was real, and no longer exists." Paul says in Col., 11. • 8. "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the traditions of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ."—Yours, etc., I. TIMOTHY, IV., I. November 22nd, 1930.

TO TBS BlilTOa OJ TE3S ITS ESS Sir, —I have read Mr Cuthbert Booth's answer to my previous letter, and I am quite aware that the '"glossary'' forms only part of the "key." But the same system of arbitrary interpretation belongs to both. And Mr Booth's little lesson on the use ot glossaries and dictionaries does not help one little bit. Certainly, in using a glossary, or a dictionary, it is necessary to select from among various interpretations the one which ,t elucidates the word or passage referred to. But one does not create one's own private glossary and key in order to interpret a whole book or books along tho lines of a preconceived . idea; merely giving to the words such arbitrary meanings as will tend to favour that idea, which is what Mrs Eddy has done. Such a procedure resembles Dr. Johnson's famous definition of '"excise" in his dictionary, which is about as illuminating as Mrs Eddy's definition of "'Gihon'' as "the rights of women, acknowledged civilly, socially, and morally.'' As I said in my previous letter, you can prove strange things from the Scriptures if you come to thorn with a strange mind. You can even interpret both "Holy Ghost" and "New Jerusalem" to mean "Divine Science"—as Mrs _jddy does. You can say that the preposition "in" is "a term obsolete in science, if applied to spirit or deity," regardless of Christ's words "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in Me" and "Hp that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood dwelleth in Me and I in him," and St. Paul's "Your bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost (spirit) which is in you." And then you can say, of course, "that the substitution of the spiritual for the natural definition of a Scriptural word often elucidates the meaning." I* largely depends on what you mean by "spiritual." You cannot apply it to any meaning which is not the natural meaning, just, because it happens to support vour particular ideas; or vary it according to the particular passage in which it occurs in order to make that passage support your ideas. Why should "Euphrates" in one place mean "Divine Science encompassing the world and man." in another "The true idea of God," and in another "Finity —the opposite of infinity"—or, indeed, why should it mean nny v of these? Mrs Eddy, too, can not be acquitted of the charge of altering the Scriptures. She says: "The disciples' desertion of their Master in His last earthly struggle was ounished —each one came to a violent death except John, of whose death we have no record." And there is no record in the Scriptures of the violent death of any of the Disciples except James and Peter. Still less is t 1 "-"-'' any record that these deaths were in any sense a punishment for deserting Christ. • "Jesus,'' says Mrs Eddy, "sent forth seventy students at one time, but only eleven left a desirable record. Tradition [what tradition P] credit* Him

with two or three hundred other disciples who have left no name. 'Many are called but few are chosen.' Those fell away from grace because they never truly understood their Master's instruction " Where does Mrs Eddy get all thisP And doesn't' St. Luke expressly state that the ''seventy" did not include the "eleven"? I certainly do not accuse Mrs Eddy of deliberate dishonesty, but simply of holding a wild and fantastic theory of the teaching of the Gospel, and of making n heroic although muddleheaded attempt to make the text of th<> Scriptures square with her theory by inventing fanciful meanings for quite plain and obvious words and phrases —Yours, etc., TOEMAYNE M. CURNOW. The Vicarnge, New Brighton, November 22nd, 1830.