The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1910-03-10
RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION.
Claim That Christian Science Doc
trines Have Been Misrepresented.

tr1neS Have Been MlSrepreSented.
1t is the intention of the local
Christian Science Publication Com
mittee to furnish occasionally to the
local press articles on Christian Sci
ence, with no view of PROSECUTING, but
for removal of prejudice.
The committee will pay for the
space and the editors of this paper
are in no way responsible for the
views expressed. (Signed).
Local Christian Science Pub. Co.
/ 1t seems, that Notwithstanding our
| boosted claim that we live in a land
| of religious liberty that the age of
| religious persecution is not wholly in
| the past as plainly shown by utter
ances in the public press during the
| past week. And Christian Science
comes in for it's full share of abuse
and misrepresentation. A Boston law
| yer delivers a lecture made up of a
chain of ISLANDERS against Christian
| Science only to be wholly refuted in
the next issue of the Boston papers.
| A prominent Brooklyn minister de-
| clares that Christian Science puts d
| premium on falsehood," and then adds
| that lit is not our wish to utter a
| single unkind or unfriendly criticism"
statement which seems hardly in
| harmony with the previous quotation.
| Happily there are broad minded
| Christian men outside the Christian
! Science church who have made an
| honest and unprecedented investigation
! of the work and fruits of Christian
| Science. Such man is B. o. Flow
| at present editor of the Goth Century
! Magazine, and we give below extracts
| from the introduction of Mr.. Flowers
recent book: Christian Science as a
| Agent:
| That we in America are living in
the presence of one of the most re-
markable spiritual movements known
| to history will not be questioned
by any thoughtful person who is cog
infant of current events, where a new
| religious movement that a few years
ago was as the voice of one crying in
| the wilderness, needed by few, has
| become great moral and religious
factor in the nation and the world
1 bric
had no church building; today there
are hundreds of handsome church ed
| fees, besides the magnificent temple
in Boston, which cost two million dol
| lars to erect; while the spread of the
, faith among the people and its Won
! derful influence in bringing health,
! peace and happiness while kindling
anew spiritual idealism in tens Of thou
sands of hearts, speaks of the pres
ence of a truth vital to help in a
| world hungering and thirsting for
something better than the husks of
dogmatic and creedal theology and
the materialistic externalism of forms
and rites.
Nor is this all The new truth
crossed the seas and has already
been gladly received in various quar-
ters of the globe. Seldom in history
has a religious movement spread so
swiftly and appealed so compelling
ly to highly intellectual and deeply
earnest men and women; and the
rapid growth has been made in the
: face of persistent campaign of mis-
representation, misinterpretation and
SANDER rarely surpassed in the an
nails of spiritual advance.
Again, all historians know that
Luther and Wesley were attacked and
illuminated. Indeed, the persecu-
tion of religious and moral leaders in
the past was inevitable, because the
people We're largely ignorant and
swayed by the few who claimed SUI
| perior intelligence and know
lege and who held places of
power and authority. But that the
same spirit, with equal virulence and
malignity, should be present in the
twentieth century-the age of democ-
racy and enlightenment-is a crying
shame against which ! hold that fair
minded men and women should ev-
erywhere protest.
Seldom in the past has the leader
of hundreds of thousands of intelli-
gent, truth-seeking souls been so per-
sistently and recklessly illuminated
as has the founder of Christian Sci
ence. Time and again have baseless
ISLANDERS been completely refuted, only
to be reiterated with brazen effrontery
by inscriptions parties who sought
to discredit the message by calumni-
ating the instrument through which