Los Angeles herald., 1909-06-27
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
TEACHES SPIRITUAL
MEANING OF BIBLE
Faith of Mrs. Eddy Heals Not by Su-
perior intellectual Knowledge,
but by Understanding of
Sacred Word

as searching the Scriptures. 1t would
perhaps be more accurately defined as
searching the manuscripts. The two
things are vastly different, though
every one does not seem to see it in
that light. 1t would be perfectly easy
to search the manuscripts for forty
years, the whole length of the time
the children of Israel were in the will
derness, or even a good deal longer,
without discovering that eternal Life
was anything more than a phrase. It
would indeed, be perfectly easy to
| search the Scriptures themselves, what
today we term, the Bible, with the
same assiduousness with which the
Pharisees did the Law and the Proph-
cts and yet to be left with an idea Of
eternal Life as an indefinable condition,
illogically to be reached through death.
This was, as matter of fact, the po-
sition reached by the Pharisees, and it
is, equally as matter of fact, the po-
sition which has been occupied by the
various Christian churches for the best
part of the time since the beginning OF
the Christian era.
Pharisees Learned
The Pharisees had searched the Scrip
lures diligently. Their knowledge of
the letter of the Law, and of the Proph-
cts, was irreproachable. Under the
prophets it must be remembered they
included the historical books of the Old
Testament as well as what we are ac-
customed to describe as the purely
phophetical writings, differentiating
them as the earlier and the later proph-
cts, so that their knowledge was his
torical as well as ceremonial. More than
this they dwelt with scrupulous care
on the figurative Interpretation of the
text, and paid scant attention to its
actual historical significance. This
comes out with remarkable clearness In
ha nh nP Ia
which recurs almost as presistently in
books of the Kings and the Chronicles
as that of thence we proceed in the
"Anabasis" of Xenophon. What it
means is this, that the Hebrew chroni-
cler seized upon the acts, no matter
what their insignificance, in the reigns
of the kings, from which it was pos
sible to draw a moral lesson of any
sort, and recorded 3'lem whilst reject
ing others which an ordinary chronicler
would have regarded as of supreme ma
tional Importance.
Reign of omri
An example of this occurs in the ac-
count of the reign of Omri, which, in
spite of it's being one of the greatest in
the history of Israel, is dismissed in
four verses. mo historian" writes one
Of the finest of living scholars, would
have dreamed of emitting all mention
of Omris conquest of Edom, which we
know from the Moabite stone, or of his
relations with Damascus, which we
learn incidentally from the conversa-
tion between Ahab and Benhadad re-
! lated in Kings. The natural inference
is that the compilers of Kings was not
attempting to write a history lin our
sense of the term), but to give an ac-
: count of Jehovah's dealings with Is
| rael, deriving his material from doc
. uments which he believed to be his
torical."
: The Syrian Carpenter
If then the Jews, searching the Scrip
lures, In the light thrown upon them
by their recognition of the spiritual les
sons conveyed through the historical
element of the text, failed to find in
I them the testimony of the Christ; if
Christendom, with the additional evil
/ dence of the New Testament in its
hands, and with the labors of genera
) tions of the most brilliant scholars to
guide it, could not get view of eter-
nal Life very much more clear or prac-
tical than that of the Jews; but, If a
Syrian carpenter, of whom the Jews
themselves "marveled, saying, How
knoweth this man letters, having never
learned?" could teach a handful of
Syrian peasants, from the pages of
these very Scriptures, the secret of the
Christ, is it not manifest that the
searching must be done less histori-
Cdlly ana iilOT6 ll6ldpIly SlCtillyB lCSS AIi-
tellectually and with more humility,
less materially and more spiritually?
Spiritual Sense Most Essential
In a word. mankind. in order to be
successful in it's search, must learn
that in the words of Mrs. Eddy, "The
one important Interpretation OF Scrip
ture is the spiritual" and must turn
! aside from literary and critical spec
ulation however engrossing, and from
tot, ,ria aa1 1rTai1s InN int
ms. to search the Scriptures as Christ
Jesus searched them, with an interest
shorn of materialitv., and intent on
spirituality, and so escape his rebuke
! to the Jews Search the Scriptures;
for in them We think We have eternal
life; and they are they which testify
of me-" It was because Mrs. Eddy
searched the Scriptures in this way
that she learned from them the secret
Of the teaching of Christ Jesus, not
thinking but knowing that in them ye
have eternal life, for in his words to
his disciples, on the eve of the cruel
tixion, "This is Life eternal, that they
} might know thee the only true God,
t and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent"
Spiritual Training Necessary
Spiritual things, Paul told the Corin-
thians. are spiritually discerned. and
that saying is as true anywhere in the
WOIlu lOOby do II was III COI4nlus III
the first century. If any man wishes to
discern the spiritual meaning of the BIZ
BILE he will have to train himself not
Intellectually but spiritually. He will
have, that is to say, to accept the
) standpoint of the Galilean hillside in
, preference to that of the universities,
and to learn that there is one intelll-
gence, not many, and to demonstrate
his knowledge not in theological theo-
ries but in Christian healing. In the
religion of Christ Jesus theory is in
separable from practice, understanding
from demonstration, preaching the
gospel from healing the sick The
early Jewish Christians healed the sick
not because they were more CONVEX
SAINT with the Law and the Prophets
than the Pharisees, but because they
understood the Law and the Prophets
in the light of the spiritual explana-
tion of Christ Jesus.
Search the Scriptures
The Christian Science church is heal
ing the sick today not because of a
knowledge of the Bible intellectually
superior to that of the orthodox
\ churches, but through a spiritual un-
derstanding of the text derived from q
study of the Christian Science text
book The tree is known by its fruits,
the value of theory by its practise
A practical Christianity has to be
tested by the practice of Christ Jesus
He said preach the gospel and heal the
sick, but he also said search the Scrip
| q