Weekly Arizona journal-miner. [volume] (Prescott, Ariz.) 1903-1908, 1904-01-27
JUDGE v, G. EW|NG'S LECTURE ON
SUBJECT OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
Delivered in Odd Fellows Hall on Evening
of january 8-==Introduction By
Judge E. w. Wells.

his companionable associa-
ions and his repeated efforts in the
Christian Science lecture field, has
made him we'll known to hundreds
and thousands of honest thinking |
people.
A beneficiary of Christian Science
treatment and understanding, he is
its friend and advocate, and for him
| ask your attentive, fair and impartial
hearing. l have the pleasure of intro
ducing to you Judge Ewing.
Judge Ewing said:
christian Scientists do not shrink
from the responsibility attaching to
their Christian belief and its prac-
tice. They do not invoke your sym
patty nor supplicate your charity;
they court investigation and demand
justice. Serene in their purpose to
be right, if wrong, they would be
righted; if right, the good they have
belongs to humanity, and should be
distributed to its own. Hence their
effort in the simplicity and sincerity
of brotherly love to tell you some
thing of the joy that has sweetened
their lives and made them, as we
would say, not better than you are,
but better than they were, and that
will make you even better than you
are.
every Christian church has been
compelled to struggle for its establish
ment, and in the presentation of our
cause we are no more cOmbated by
honest opinion than your church was,
whatever its name, in its effort for
recognition. Now, as then, it is pref
udice that brazenly confronts every
new thought of God, every concept of
the Infinite Father, born of individual
conscience, and in the blazing light
of the latest and best day that has
gladdened humanity. Prejudice is the
enemy of progress; it would mock
equity, degrade charity, traduce truth,
dethrone right, pollute justice, it is
devilish, il is pre-determination,j udg-
ment without evidence, conclusion
without reason, conviction without
thought. And yet, it is because we
realize quite as we'll as you do that
many of our people, aud especially
many of the good people of the old
churches are, greatly prejudiced
against what they think Christian
Science to be, that / invite your at
tention for brief moment tonight.
In fairness to myself and in fairness
to the good people who challenge the
Scriptural AUTHORITY :oT nv position,
l must say that / ana nc! surprised
that you antagOniZe What Juu think
| Christian Science is; for Il IL we're in
deed what you think; 1t would not be
a very desirable thing. 1t is my hope
to lesson this condition in some de-
gree, and to place you in the only
position that an honest mind can Oc-
cupy to examine profitably any ques-
tion worthy of thought, viz, in the
mental attitude of the honest judge,
who goes upon the bench to hold with
even hand the scales of justice, and
allow his judgment to be formed by
/ the truth, and by the truth alone. II
is no part of my purpose to take any
thing from you, but to add to the
good you have; l simply commend
the sweetness and love and song of my
own, and thank God for the sweetness
and love and song of yours. | believe
| there never has been an association oil
conscientious men and women for the
purpose of building up Gods king
| dom that does not today rest as {
! benediction on the world. My effort
is not to make you think less of your
church, but to correct your thought
respecting my church. | speak NJ
word in unkindness, but all in simple
trust in the integrity of your purpose
and of my own.
| talk tonight to men and womer
who have the courasge, the mora
courage, the physical courage, and
what is more than either the intel
lectual integrity, to take away from
this meeting whatever there is o.
value in it that meets the approval o.
their best Judgment and ripest con
science; and the courage also to leave
behind. far behind, everything tha
does not receive such approval.
Your thought of Christian Science
is-just how you got it | do not know
and doubt very much whether yoU
do, but still you have the though
that, in some way or other, Christian
Science is antagonists to the religion
of Jesus Christ aud therefore you an
tagoniZe Christian Science. If you
premise is right, if after conscientiou
investigation. of our concept of Coo
you reach the conclusion that Christ
ian Science is in any degree inimica
to the religion of Jesus Christ, then
in my judgment, tits not only you
privilege, but your duty, to antago
niZe Christian Science, and never Il
allow your opposition to it to ceas'
until either you cease yourself o.
Christian Scieace ceases. My reason
able demand is that you make the in
vestigation before you make the as
sault. 1t is so much easier to expires
an opinion after you have formed it
| remebmer many years ago asking ;
Juror, for the purpose of testing hi
qualification, this question: "Hav,
you formed or expressed any opinion
of the merits of this case?" He evi
IDENTIFY wanted to serve the contest be
tween his ambition, and his cCnscienc,
was fierce for a moment; then HI
turned to the court and said: 'Well
Judge. it pears to me | hev expressed
an opinion about it, but before Goo
| haint never formed any"
Through every chance and chance
anchor your hope to the promises o
the gospel of Jesus. If to do this
contention with principalities or pow
ers must come, shrink not from tn,
struggle. 1 believe, and you believ,
also tyour earnest faces makes procla
nation of the fact, that the religion
of Jesus is of greater value to thu
world, is of greater value to you anC
to me, than everything else that ha
ever been or ever can be crowded int
this universe; therefore, whatever
impinges upon that, whatever lessen:
the sweetness, the love and song o
that, will meet with my earnest, con
sistent, and persistent opposition
and, in all conscience, should NEE
with yours.
You have this other thought o
Christian Science; that taken at it
best. as you understand it, for all tha
its devotees claim, and still, it is bu
an ephemeral thing, for an ephemera
purpose; that it Is something for the
physical man, the man of clay, anC
nothing for the man fashioned in the
image and likeness of the lnfinit,
Father; that it is something for to
day, and today only, and nothing fol
the infinite Father; that it is some
thing for the Unreasonable tomorrow
OF God. if you are right, then Christ
ian Science is a baseless thing-th'
SIRENS song of peace, "When there Ii
no peace" But you are not right,
you are wholly wrong: l assert thai
there is not genius enough in thii
world to frame a statement respecting
Christian Science that would be widel
the mark or more absolutely barren o.
truth than just what l have imagined
your thought of it is.
The physical benefits of Christian
Science. its medicinal virtue, its heal.
I Al ~