Jump to content

Page:Christian Science versus Pantheism.djvu/24

From Wikisource
This page has been validated.
10
MESSAGES TO THE MOTHER CHURCH

ground that it takes away man's personality and makes man less than man. But what saith the apostle? — even this: “If a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.” The great Nazarene Prophet said, “By their fruits ye shall know them:” then, if the effects of Christian Science on the lives of men be thus judged, we are sure the honest verdict of humanity will attest its uplifting power, and prevail over the opposite notion that Christian Science lessens man's individuality.

The students at the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, generally, were the average man and woman. But after graduation, the best students in the class averred that they were stronger and better than before it. With twelve lessons or less, the present and future of those students had wonderfully broadened and brightened before them, thus proving the utility of what they had been taught. Christian Scientists heal functional, organic, chronic, and acute diseases that M.D.'s have failed to heal; and, better still, they reform desperate cases of intemperance, tobacco using, and immorality, which, we regret to say, other religious teachers are unable to effect. All this is accomplished by the grace of God, — the effect of God understood. A higher manhood is manifest, and never lost, in that individual who finds the highest joy, — therefore no pleasure in loathsome habits or in sin, and no necessity for disease and death. Whatever promotes statuesque being, health, and holiness does not degrade man's personality. Sin, sickness, appetites, and passions, constitute no part of man, but obscure man. Therefore it