Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1901-07-05
THE CORVALLIS GAZETTE.
FRIDAY, JULY 5, 1901.
THE ERROR OF II.


and women embrace such erron-
eous doctrines as it sets forth. 1t
now has over 600 organized
churches with quite a million
members, and church property
valued at twelve million dollars.
1t has gathered its membership
mainly from the organized
churches which appear to be al
most powerless to resist its ag-
gressions and to expose is errors.
What gives it such vitality and
power is an inquiry of interest,
not only to church members, but
to all thoughtful men.
1t cannot be all error, for no
pure, un1nixed lie can long pros.
per. 1t must contain some truth.
To combat the error we must dis
cover the truth it contains and
lift that out of its false relations
and by giving it its own settings
destroy the false inferences it has
been forced to yield.
Christian science has seized
upon the doctrines Of the christian
church, and placing them in
false relations causes them to ap.
peal to the natural warnings of
the human heart through infer
ences which are subtle and Sc
ductive, but grossly delusive.
Man is a religious being. He
believes in some sort of a supreme
controlling being. He is not sat-
isfed with a God who is afar off
and difficult to approach, and
powerless to help. His soul
yearns for a God that is near,
whose love encompasses him,
whose hand is ever ready to help
him. Christianity presents such
God to him. 1t afirnls the
kinship of God and man. It
teaches that both are spirit, God
the Father, man the child. It
declares the all-pervadirg pres
ence of God in the processes of
the universe and in the human
soul.
So Christian science teaches the
kinship of the Creator and the
creature. Mrs. Eddy af6rms
that what men call thought is
really the "God-thought, - and
the only force OF power in the
world. Matter and evil, and
pain and disease are not real be-
cause they have no place in the
Divine mind. They are but
forms Of mortal thought which
right relations with the "God-
thought would destroy. All diff
ference between the Divine and
the human is destroyed by a pro-
cess of fusion through which the
human loses its identity in the
God-thought. This is simply
pantheism, and practically pure
atheism.
The conscious presence of God
with men is so vital to their re-
ligious faith, and believed by
them to be SO necessary to all
their true interests here and here
after, that christian science had
but to put forth its efforts to real
ize this consciousness. here,
doubtless, is the reason of the
success of this strange delusion.
The Christian church sees "the
livery of heaven stolen to serve
the devil, " yet seems to be pow
erless successfully to combat the
hideous error. 1t is true, the
pulpit and religious press. have,
: from time to time, struck at it in
discriminatory and blindly, but
they struck at its errorinstead
of acknowledging the truth which
underlies; setting that in its right
relations, and giving emphasis to
its rational inferences.
What deters them from doing
this? Is it probable they fear
that the church has taught this
radical truth so loosely, SO vague
ly and carelessly, as to rem
der this sliding off into error but
a short, easy process? Whatever
the reason, the fact remains that
the pulpit and the religious press
have rather sought by invective,
ridicule, abuse, and the charge OF
error, than by admitting it basic
truth, to combat this system of
false science.
The secular press has done
more efficient service. Not re-
strained by any fear that Chris
tian science may be ga church
doctrine gone to seed, . it has
sought to rescue the truth from
its false relations, while ridicul-
ing the irrational and false infer
ences which have led So many to
embracing the delusion in toto.