The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1901-07-14

ing and he will be convinced that ss
against water, there is something to be
said for soil. To be rooted and ground
e6' is no small advantage, whether for
seedlings or souls. when it is a question
Of staying power. The fault find with
the soil OF Christian Science regarded as
4 nursery Of character IS simply this; IL
IS soil of thin and aqueous abstraction,
from which the fertilizer known as per
sonality is wholly absent.
The bane alike of theology and philoso-
ply is the tendency which lnheres in each
of them TO express, or try to express, the
things of the spirit I'm terms OF the intel
Iect. The personal elements that really
make man what he is they vOtattiize
away by their analytic processes, and
then. holding up the skeleton from which
every suggestion of flesh and blood has
vanished, eXClaim, ECce HOmol No, It is
not a man at all that is thus exploited;
it is only a concentration Of ideas.
The Christian Scientists set up a ghost
" image, fashioned of the thin abstrac-
lions Of the mind, and would have us. to
take il for the living God But this is not
the sort OF God for which man heart
and flesh cry out. I cannot worship a
principle, I cannot pray TO a definition,
cannot love an idea Until love begins
to operate II is no more to me than any
other abstract term. and Il cannot pos
sibly be Operant. save as it proceeds from
n person toward q person. A gospel OF
notions as Maurice was continually say
ing, is no gospel
Define God as a principle and he ceases
TO be q. possible object of my love; insist
that he is an idea, and / viii pray to him
no longer. It IS q. mistake to argue that
because God is love. love must DO God,
just as It would be a. mistake TO argue
that because God is light light must be
God. These propositions are not what the
lOgicians call convertible An overhead
OF anthrOpOmOrphism scareS many souls
into nonsense If we are to love God and
to be persuaded that he loves US, some
thing of humannesS must be allowed TO
work its way into our conception of deity.
If we are so afraid Of anthrOpOmorphism
that we dare not let such words as 'lov-
ing-kindness,' tender mercy purpose
and will escape our lips in connection
with deity, We may IS well give over the
building of flames of fruitiess prayer
and to the ''wintry skies roll no more
psalms.
Why does Paul make charity the great
est of the three2 Is it not because OF
this very fact that whereas faith, If de
fined as assent. may go forth to an alb
stract proposition, and hope, II defined
as expectancy, may direct itself toward
material rewards, love, under any and
every definition OF which It IS at all pa
tient, demands a. person To be loved We
may put faith in statements. we may
hope for things, but we can love only that
which is personal be it man or Cod The
Christian Scientist. being ia perpetual
doubt as to whether his fellow man IS
real. and being forbidden TO conceive Of
Almighty God as other than principle
must perforce find himself finally driven
back for the only sure object OF love.
upon himself. When this point is reached,
ton of aches and pains, or rather, of the
best method of escape from aches ana
pains, becomes the supreme interest II
life