The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1916-04-14
GOOD lecture ON
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
WAS HEARD BY MANY
VERY ENTERTAINING TALK WAS
DELIVERED AT THE UNIVER-
SALIST CHURCH LAST NIGHT
BY DR.. w. D. McCRACKAN.

An interested audience was pres
ent last night at the Universalist
church, when William D. McCrackan,
NJ. A. C. & B., delivered lecture on
Christian Science. Mr.. McCrackan Is
an able and forceful speaker, and
among other things, said:
Christian Science provides a way
of estimating the facts in every hui
man problem and is thus means OF
escape from every untoward situa-
ton. Is the sufferer one who feels
aggrieved because he has been oblig-
ed to stand aside and see the worlds
activities pass him by, perhaps by
reason of invalidism or through lack
of what are called natural opportun-
tiles? Then let him take the line
of demarcation offered by Chri9tian
Science, and measure off that in his
thought which is godlike from that
which is unlike God. Let him harv-
est the first and discard the second,
and he will rise out of his loneliness
and isolation and become a useful
member of society.
Is the seeker for help one who has
spent his all in the futile pursuit of
pleasure only to find that pain is mis-
reward? Let him too measure out the
immutable and true from the change
able and false by means of this spirit
ual understanding offered by Chris
tan Science, and he will find gen
uine happiness, real bliss and Joy, to
be spiritual and not material. This
same help is available for the sick
and SHINING, the down trodden, the
fearful, the ignorant, the seeming
victims and martyrs of evil belief, or
of malicious mental suggestions. It
] is the way of salvation for those lying
on beds of suffering as well as for
those in bondage to bad habits.
Now it is evident that in order to
follow out this process of classical
ton between that which is like God
and that which is unlike Him, there
must be practical understanding Of
God Himself, of His nature and quail
tiles. It therefore becomes the duty
and privilege of those seeking help
in Christian Science to become ac-
quainted first and last with God Him
self.
God, who made all that was made,
and saw that it was Every good, ,
does not doom His own man to de-
cay, dissolution, and death. 1t fol-
lows that such predictions, generally
designated as laws of disease, have
no divine origin and can be set aside
without doing violence to divine de-
crees. The spiritual understanding of
this at once frees humanity from the
dread of law and necessity supposed
to be Incorporated in disease. 1t lifts
the bugbear of incurability from the
frightened sense of the sick and sin
ming, and establishes them upon the
sure foundation of their divine rights
to health, happiness, holiness, and
through reformation and repentance
to heaven itself. BY this test of the
real and the unreal, humanity can
sort out of its experiences the in
evitable good from the seeming evil,
the spiritual necessities from the ma
terial appearances. This process
means growth, progress along the
narrow way. It makes plain the path
from sense to Soul and is the modus
operandi of Christion Science healing
and reforming. In Science and
Health 20 469) Mrs. Eddy writes,
''The exterminator of error is the
great truth that God, good, is the only
Mind, and that the suppositious OPP
posite of infinite Mind-called devil
or evils not Mind, is not Truth, put
error, without intelligence or reality"
The Importance of recognizing God
as the only Mind is clearly seen when
the sad effects of believing in a sup
positions opposite of the divine
Mind are learned by experience. Paul
designates this suppositious mind as
the carnal or fieshly mind. Mrs. Eddy
has described it more specifically as
mortal mind, or the mind of mortals,
This belief in a mind apart from God
is capable of all evil. It would set up,
if it could, power opposed to God
to nullify His DEGREES and dethrone
His majesty. This belief attempts to
defraud man of his rights and to rob
him of everything that ne holds dear.
Mortal mind, if not corrected by
spiritual understanding, will take
from man his health, happiness, free
dom, joy; his wealth, his trends, his
good name; in short, all that human
ity justly prizes.
Christian Science furthermore de-
> clares God to be Life, eternal Life
This concept is naturally linked t.
that of God as Mind, in human
thought, by the fact that the only way
by which man is aware that he lives
is because he thinks. If the question
is asked, How do I know that live
the answer must be, Because I an
conscious, because / think. Man il
a mental being. Living involves men
tai action, and so our investigation
into the nature of God passes natural
~ from the recognition of Him as di
: vine Mind to the consideration of Hin