The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1913-07-24
A LECTURE ON
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
(By Bieknell Young. c. S. b.

(By Bicknell Young. C. S. b.
The whole object of religious educa-
tion should be to arouse in human
thought a right concept of divinity, and
thereby enable human beings to appre-
hend the way of deliverance from evil.
This way is the divine Christ, the cor
rect knowledge of God.
Now recognizing that the nature of
divinity must be eternal, and therefore
wholly good, we see that God could not
1 in any way entertain any evil. Evil,
sin, and disease, are the destructive
elements of human experience. They
do not belong to the divine nature I;
they never originated there. Any sup
positiaon that they did so is erroneous,
| for it would imply the necessity of an
element of self-destruetion in God
/ Himself.
1t is for this reason that Christian
Science boldly announces the doctrine
which is often acceptable to ordinary
religious thought. 1t does not find it
necessary to ascrbe sin and disease to
God, either directly or by proxy. in or
der to account for them. Indeed. it
declares that primarily one does not
need to account for evil. The first ne
cessity is to get rid of evil, and that
necessity being fulfilled, evil is i'm
mediately accounted for. Indeed, there
is no other way of truly accounting for
or explaining evil.
Now we need to see that there are
no facts against Us. The facts are all
for us. Everything which God ever
said about you and me: everything
which God ever did to us is in the ma
ture of blessing. From God there is
nothing but blessing for the whole
race. God knows nothing else, and as
God is Love, God has nothing to bless
US with except Love. God could not
curse and would not know how to bless
us with some kind of punishment. We
should remember that there could be
no eternal existence to God if he could
curse you or me or anything or any
body or take part in anything of that
kind. God is Love and that means
health. for it means infinite Being. In
Him you will find no trouble. Chris
tian Science takes that radical attitude
and urges you to assume the same. If
one assume this attitude and maintain
it in the face of the appearance of sin
and disease. he begins to acquire a GER
tain spiritual power over such expert
ences, power which he never would
have supposed possible had he not
learned of Christian Science.
Truth has always existed. 1t was
fully demonstrated in the life of Christ
Jesus, but the demonstrable under
standing of his gospel which he de-
maided and predicted in the words,
"Ye shall know the truth, and the
truth shall make you free, was dis
covery. That discovery was made by
Mary Baker Eddy in the year 1866. 1t |
enabled her and her immediate students |
to heal disease that had previously |
been accounted incurable. In the sue
ceding forty odd years of Christian
Science practice, similar results have
been accomplished in tens of thousands
of instances and in various parts of
the world.
That men and women who have ac-
great things should gener
ally be more or less misunderstood,
and not infrequently slandGred and
is not so strange when we
view the career of Jesus who did
nothing but good upon earth. and yet,
as prophetically described by Isaiah,
was ''depised and rejected of men. y
In the teaching of the practical APP
plication of his gospel to humanity,
Mrs. Eddy has fulfilled the highest
that of a true Christian. In
deed, pure Christianity was the ideal
she entertained from the very begin
ming to the end of her career. She was
an unseltish, consecrated, noble and
wonderfully gifted and spiritually
minded Christian woman. She not only
discovered Christian Science, but gave
to the world her book, "Science and
Health with Key to the Scriptures, "
mankind can learn the spirit
lal import of the Holy Scriptures and
IAN gain the knowledge and power of
Christian healing.
Our first steps must be by means of
he process or modus operandi of Chris
nan Science, and we have to continue
n that way, we know not how long.
thought will be so spon-
an0us that healing will be immediate.
Ne can, in the meatime. affirm the
rue nature of God, declare that He
never created any disease, that conse-
luently disease has no creator and no
'ause, and does not exist nor continue
~ virtue Of law. We can affirm that
he same Christ which has always
aved from sin and disease saves from
in and disease now. and that Christ is
IS available to us today as it was to
lesus and his disciples centuries ago.
We are not sacrilegious in this, but
purely religious. We learn to rely up
N God. We leain to reconize the di-
'ine Power and to be guided and con- /
tanly controlled by the divine Mind, 8
n infinite Presence, which we call
iod. In this way we apprehend step \
" step the true nature of God, illus d
rate more clearly the Christ, and t
waken more surely in the divine /
mage T.