The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-05-03

psIt or the reality or truln or man being. It is upon these propositions that Christian science during the last thirty years has been insisting as fun damental parts of the Christ process of healing the sick. It is upon these propositions that Christian science bas- es its successful practice in the heal ing of the sick. It is because of these propositions that Christian science has met with strenuous opposition from those who teach that God is the au- 2r of evil and that such evil is reality and truth. If Christian sci- ence is right on the points, it ex- plains what otherwise would be in- capable of explanation In it's wonder ful works in overcoming sinful habits and physical sickness. If 1t is right on these points, then the works of healing the sick" which were per- formed by Jesus and the early Chris tians for over three centuries after Calvary are fully explained, and there by much-used weapon taken from the hand of infidelity
 It is really unthinkable that the SASeblANC pl lAlSipl6 OL lllC NOuAQ be otherwise than God is described in the Bible to be, spirit, truth, and love. And it is unthinkable that such crea tive principle could create anything the opposite of His own divine nature Hence Christian science discerns by the light of our highest reason. as well as by the authority of scripture that it is sublimely true that God say every- thing that He made and, behold, it was very good" Not only good. but very good. Hence it has no teacher that admits or even suggests that God is | the author of evil. It has no teach ing which admits or suggests divine hate, cruelty or injustice. It is wholly 1 incapable of drawing any portrait sug- gesting any of the attributes of satan and writing beneath it the name of God Indeed, it is incapable of draw ! ing any portrait of Deity at all except with the celestial color of love, joy, and promise.
 You ask, then, who made the phe- nomena of evil, if God did not make them? They are man-made, not God made for they belong to human con- sciousness, and it is unthinkable that | they can belong to the divine con- sciousness, which is love, truth, har- mony, wisdom, good. Let me illus l trate. Suppose you have been erron- l eously taught that twice two is five; such a falsehood would belong to hu- man consciousness, not to the divine consciousness. Suppose that you fully believe this false rule, act upon 1t for 1 years. cipher enormously by reason of 1 it. lose money and suffer from your false teaching that twice two is five, Can you say that God made such a falsehood? God is truth, and so is ut 1 terly incapable of creating false- l hood.
 God to be the creative power must needs be the principle of harmony not discord, and so it Is utterly incap- able of creating aught discordant, God l is love, and so is utterly incapable of creating aught that his hateful, unjust or cruel God is all wisdom and all power. and therefore does not need tc mix evil and good together. God is good, and therefore does not employ I evil as an instrument or factor in His divine economy
 l A false philosophy has too long taught us to accept things for what they seem to be- instead of for what they really are We have been taught and have come to believe. that the lit. tie arc which we see and not the en. tire circle of which it forms so small z part, is the truth of being. But Chris. | tian science teaches that all reality, al which truly exists in reality, not il seeming or as phenomena, is very good (because nothing exists as reality which is not of God, of divine and in finite good)
 It is a false theology contrary botl to our highest reason and to the scrip ture, that the appearance of evil tn, phenomena of sin, sickness and suffer ing. are the creations of God. w must either reject God altogether o we must recognize that it is really a unreasonable to say that infinite goot creates evil as it is to say that infinit truth creates the falsehood that twic two is five. That we believe that sin sickness and suffering are realities 0 mans being does not make them SC Appearances belong to one category il sound reasoning, and truths belong t another and distinct category,
 A profound truth is encompassed fl the scriDtural statement: tAs a maj thinketh in his heart so he is." Tn conceptions which person has of Go exercise a most powerful influence ove that persons character, conduct, habit of thinking and physical being. Indeed it is impossible to measure or limi the activities and scope of these in fiuences and their far-reaching effects Christian science has been a chic factor, in the last twenty-five years, i arousing the sleeping attention of man kind to the pressing importance of
 constant recognition of these influence and effects If we believe that God 1 the author of sin, we look upon sin a an unfavorable and, indeed, indlspens able part of tfa economy on the uni verse. Does not such a view of si
 tend to make us more tolerant of it
 presence in ourselves and others an
 to discourage the energies of our resist ance against it? If we believe God t
 be the author of sickness, and tha sickness is one of the dispensations Q
 divine Providence (to use a phras
 that was once much in fashion, wha
 is the use of taking any steps to ge well? If we really believe that God in terds and decrees us to be sick, can " expect that drugs, or prayers of faitf or anything else, will defeat the deifi purpose? We can only become mor