Edward A. Kimball, C.S.D.
A synopsis of answers to questions upon the subject of Christian Science propounded to Edward A. Kimball of Chicago before the Bloomington (Illinois) Chautauqua. Published originally in the Bloomington Daily Bulletin, and republished, as revised, from The Christian Science journal.
Mr. Kimball said: A number of questions in reference to this subject have been handed in for me to answer. I would like to say that I shall not stand here under pretense of being an oracle. The best that I can do will be to reply to the different questions that are brought out here in the light of my understanding of Christian Science, aided by what little familiarity I may have with the other side of the subject. These questions concerning Christian Science are of frequent occurrence, and whenever they are made in good faith every Christian Scientist is only too willing to do what he can to elucidate this subject.
The first question in this list is, What are the fundamental points of difference between Christian Scientists and other Christians? If these other Christians were as a unit in a common understanding of God; if they had a specific and universal understanding of Jesus Christ,-his words and works; if they agreed precisely and exactly concerning the origin and destiny of man; concerning the future,- relation to heaven and hell, in relation to punishment and all the vital and special things that go to make up religious thought and belief; if there was a unit here with which to compare the unit of Christian Science, it would be a simple thing to answer this question. But, to use more exact phraseology, "the beliefs of other Christians" have been as numerous as the sands upon the seashore. I venture to make the statement, which anyone can verify in part, that if you were to go to a million people and ask them to give you a full and definite statement of their beliefs concerning all the fundamentals of religion, you would not get two precisely alike.
In the first place you will very seldom find a man who knows what he believes concerning these questions. Some years ago a minister was tried for heresy in the city of Chicago. It was claimed that he had incorporated in his preaching the doctrines of Unitarianism. In his defense several of his parishioners and elders were cited as witnesses, and every one of them testified that they considered his preaching-all the substance of his sermons-entirely orthodox or evangelical. To test their qualifications as witnesses the prosecutor read to each one certain extracts from his pastor's sermons and from the sermons written by a noted Unitarian divine, promulgating the doctrines of Unitarianism. Supposing them all to be sermons of the accused, all the witnesses said they approved of the substance as being evangelical.
Only a short time ago I was talking with a man ,who belonged to the Congregational church. He desired to know about Christian Science treatment. In the course of the conversation he told me he did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus. He went to work to prove to me why it was utterly impossible for Jesus to rise from the dead after being dead for three days. Now I ask you what sense of Congregationalism was it that eliminated from his belief the doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus? What becomes of Christianity with the resurrection left out of it? That man supposed he was a Christian and a true disciple, but still he denied the resurrection of Jesus. Again, you cannot always tell what a man believes by what be says. It is not enough to say, I am this or that. Suppose a man says to you, "I believe that God is infinite." And you, perhaps reaching out beyond the limitation of the testimony of the senses, allowing your thoughts to rest on those things that are not within the reach of the eyes, nose, and mouth, lay hold somewhat upon the meaning of this word "infinite." You know that that which is infinite must be self-existent and all-inclusive; it must contain all the elements of continuance or immortality; it must be unlimited; there can be nothing unlike itself or that is not included in itself. And as you begin to take on the wonderful signification of the word, you turn to him and say, "So do I." And all the time you are thinking of infinite intelligence, of the all-inclusive God, infinite wisdom. Then he says, "I believe in the omnipotence of God." And as you realize that there is no power without intelligence, and that which is omni-intelligence or omni-science must also include all power; when you realize that infinite cannot be anything less than infinite, and that it is the omnipotence of the omnipotent that you are thinking about, you again say to him, "So do I."
Then he says to you: "I believe in the power of evil. I believe that there is an entity called Satan, possessing all the characteristics of immortality, possessing power akin to the divine power and the ability to hold mankind in eternal punishment, power to drag man down from the image and likeness of God to perdition." And when you see that this man who is trying to believe in the omnipotence of God lays a great deal more stress on the power of evil; when you find that he believes in an eternal entity and intelligence opposed to the infinite God, then you see and know that the man does not believe in the first two propositions at all. It makes no difference how a man tries to persuade himself that he believes in an infinite omnipotent God if at the same time he is trying to believe in a devil or power opposed to this infinite. All the sophistry he can bring to bear upon the subject cannot outweigh the utter falsity and futility of the effort and of that conclusion.
It is said that there are about one hundred and forty different Christian sects; nevertheless, it would perhaps be indelicate for me to stand up here and say what other people's beliefs are concerning God and man, and their relation to each other; concerning the question of the Messiahship, of future punishment, man's duty, and so on. It is not for me to say what you and others believe, nor is it worth while for me to discuss the beliefs of the different denominations, but we will take up what I suppose to be the intent of this inquiry, and put it a little differently from the way in which it has been stated.
In what respect is Christian Science, viewed as a religious belief, different from all other Christian beliefs? or rather, In what respects are the fundamentals of Christian Science different from all other beliefs? I can perhaps with profit speak of two special differences. One is this: Christian Scientists do believe that God is infinite; that God is infinite good, infinite Truth, infinite Life, infinite Love, infinite wisdom, infinite intelligence, and that there is none else beside him." That being the case, we have to account for evil in some other way than by calling it a power opposed to God, or an evidence of the manifestation of intelligence and wisdom. Christian Scientists believe emphatically and thoroughly that if God is good at all, He must be infinitely good; if God is Truth at all, He must be infinite Truth, and all truth must be good; if God is intelligence at all, He must be infinite intelligence, and, therefore, all intelligence must be good; and that which calls itself evil intelligence and evil power is not of God, is not included in the infinite, is not permitted by the infinite, is not made use of by the infinite, but is entirely apart and separate from it. It is utterly impossible to conceive of God as infinite good and then incorporate within that an entity called Satan or spirit of evil.
How do Christian Scientists account for evil? We find it to be this: That the only Satan there is, is the false concept of being, or what has been termed the carnal mind. just as soon as men absolutely stop sinning there will be no witness of sin, there will be no witness of a devil, there will be no sin known; and in order to get rid of sin, the only, way to do it is to stop sinning. Mortal man has contemplated this thing we call evil so long, and sin itself has seemed to exercise such a bondage over him, that he has seemed to be obliged to account for it in some way. He has looked upon it as something supernatural, something from which he could not escape; and that horrible sense of the power of evil has hung upon him and mildewed him; its chains have deprived him of the dominion he has over the claim of evil power. What is there more paralyzing to a man's endeavors than to suppose that there is opposed to him a mysterious power -a supernatural agency with which he is unable to cope-which in spite of his every effort may drag him down to infinite punishment for the finite sin he has committed.
The question arises, What is the Christian Scientist trying to do to resist Satan? He is trying to cast evil out of his own thought, from his own life, from his own experience; the only way he knows of whereby to resist evil is to do that, and he does it rationally, with the understanding that when he has accomplished that he has overcome the devil in himself. What has been the scene of his strife? Is it not that of his own experience, of his own thought, of his own tendency? When he sees that he has overcome Satan, if we ask what has been the theater of action, and he answers truly, he will say that it has been his own consciousness.
I shall ignore all the contradictions of religious beliefs and presume that as Christians we all agree as to the saving mission of Jesus; the divinity of Christ; the efficacy of the atonement, and the necessity for following Christ as the way of salvation. Let us say that we all agree concerning the desirability of manifesting good and resisting evil, that the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount were intended for us, and that we believe in the teachings of Jesus and that he said, "Go ye into all the world," "Preach the gospel," "Heal the sick," etc.
Having agreed up to this point, the Christian Scientist diverges from the generally accepted conceptions of Christians. So far as I know, there is no other well-known and acknowledged Christian denomination that accepts and believes that part of Jesus' Christianity-the healing of the sick-as the natural and indispensable phenomenon of religion. I know of no other such Christians who believe that the command to heal the sick was intended for them or that they can comply. Christian Scientists, on the other hand, understand that this command was intended for all Christians and for all time, and that they can and must obey its mandatory instruction in order to manifest the Christianity of Jesus, who said, "I am the way....Follow thou me," "Go, and do thou likewise." This is perhaps the most conspicuous difference between Christian Scientists and other Christians.
The next question coming on in this same line is this: Is it not blasphemous to claim to heal as Jesus did, thus making yourselves equal to Jesus, or making gods of yourselves? The latter part of the question, Thus making yourselves equal to Jesus, or making gods of yourselves, is gratuitous. There is no Christian Scientist who supposes that he is equal to Jesus; he knows why he is not. There is no Christian Scientist trying to make a god of himself; he understands that God is infinite, and that he cannot possibly change himself so as to include the infinite. Let us take the first part, which is a legitimate question: Is it not blasphemous to claim to heal as Jesus did? If it is blasphemous as a follower of Jesus to follow his commands, then the answer is, Yes. If it is blasphemous for us to obey the commands of Jesus, then it is blasphemous to preach the gospel; it is blasphemous to be pure in heart; it is blasphemous to be meek; it is blasphemous to love your neighbor; it is blasphemous to keep the Ten Commandments; it is blasphemous to obey God. If it is thought to be blasphemous to respond to this instruction of Jesus, then I would like to have you ask yourself what authority there is for dissecting the commands of Jesus and saying this one is valid and that one is not. Where can you find any authority for annulling any of the commands of Jesus, if you have any respect for them at all?
Is it not blasphemous to claim to heal as Jesus healed?
Do you know how Jesus healed? Who is there here that knows how Jesus healed? Does the one who makes this inquiry know how Jesus healed? I once read a synopsis of an infidel lecture in which the writer was trying to impeach the Biblical account of the miracles, those of the Old Testament and those performed by Jesus. It went on something like this: He said, "Now take these Christian people at their own word. They begin by saying that their God is infinite; He is infinite power, wisdom, truth, and intelligence. If that is the case, everything is in accord with the infinite, and it must be scientific. God cannot be a miraculous God if He is infinite; it is only to the sense of the beholder that anything can be miraculous; God cannot be supernatural or unnatural to Himself. If Jesus did the will of God be did it in accordance with the nature of God, which would be scientific. If miracles had been performed, they would have been performed in accordance with science, and if so they could be done again. That they have never been performed again is evidence that the Biblical account of the miracles is spurious." He made out of it that because it was claimed that the works of Jesus were miraculous, that claim stultified the other claim that God is infinite.
When we come to know the Science of Jesus' words and works, we learn that when he taught his disciples what they were to do in order to manifest Christianity, he taught them the operation of divinely natural law-the law of God, which he came to fulfill. He taught every one of them that the healing of the sick was the legitimate phenomenon of his own understanding of God, and in his teaching he said, "These signs shall follow them that believe." He was not talking to eleven or twelve men. He was not speaking to a mere speck upon the great wave of humanity; he was teaching of Principle; he was giving out something for eternal years. What did be say? He said, practically, Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and these signs shall follow you, because you are my students -my disciples. They shall follow them that understand you.
It has been the general understanding that the power to heal which was bestowed upon these disciples was a special interposition-a miraculous or unnatural enactment of God in behalf of these disciples. We repudiate that view of it. Do you not remember that there was a time when the disciples came to Jesus and said there was a case they could not heal, and he said to them, "O faithless and perverse generation"? Jesus' work was poorly done if be had set out to bestow on these few men, out of all that ever lived, this great power, and it had failed, so that they could not do that which was brought to them. This sentence of Jesus shows that the effort was a failure in that they did not have a full understanding of what he had taught them.
What do you think Jesus came upon the earth for? Was it not for the saving of the race by the manifestation of the highest good that had ever been known? If healing the sick was one of those manifestations of good, why should the impartation of infinite good have limited its operation to eleven men?
I am going to introduce another of these questions right here: Why do Christian Scientists presume to heal when that time is past? What time is past? If you read history, do you not know that one of the invariable accompaniments of early Christian experience was the healing of the sick? Do you not know that so long as Christianity maintained its purity and kept within the confines of meekness, honesty, and self-abnegation, the healing was one of the phenomena of Christian work? We have been accustomed to applaud the Emperor Constantine because he espoused Christianity. What a glorious day it was supposed to be when he fixed his gaze upon Christianity, laid his hand on it, and said, "You are mine." Unhappy hour for the world! What did he do? What did the world do? It took the simple Christianity of the Nazarene, the simple Christianity of the fishermen, put it on a throne and clothed it in purple and fine linen, and made it a political agency. No wonder that faith in God disappeared!
If God is infinite, He works through infinite laws. If God is infinite, He must be impartial; His laws, therefore, are impartial. It is just as impossible for God to create and set in motion a law that has no further application than that which extends itself over twelve, seventy, or three hundred men, as it is for God to become less than infinite. It is an impossibility. Whatever is being done according to God is being done according to His universal impartiality. If it were ever right for a sick man to be healed in accordance with the universal law of God, it is right now. There was no good created by God for the year 1, if you please, or again for the Christian era, that is not good for Him now, or that is too good for Him now. When God healed the sick through Jesus, did He do a good thing, or an evil thing? Did Jesus, in healing the sick, thereby destroy the works of God, or the "works of the devil"?
How does it happen, if this is of God, that our good and learned people, preachers, etc., do not believe it? Before I answer the question I would like to say that some of our good and learned people do believe in it, and that we are not, as some suppose, a lot of pagans.
How does it happen, if this is of God, that our good and learned people, preachers, etc., do not believe in it? How did it happen, if Jesus was of God, that the representatives of the most venerable theology in the world, the most highly cultured, philosophical, and learned people of the world, those who were supposed to represent the wisdom of this world,-did not believe in him? You who are Christians now, looking back upon the scene of Jerusalem, the scene of Athens,-that home of literature and philosophy,-what do you think of the goodness and learning which rejected Jesus simply because they were the representatives of the dominant religion of that time? Does that indicate that they were right in rejecting Jesus, and that Jesus was wrong because those people did not accept him?
Now let us change the question a little, and ask it in this way: Why is it, if this is of God, that all religious people do not recognize it as such and accept it? There is one reason that really covers the whole ground. It is because they do not believe in it; that is the reason they do not accept it,-they do not believe that it is true. Let us see why. Let us get away from personality and see that every religious denomination is simply the embodiment of some kind of religious belief, and that it is this belief and doctrine which we are to consider and not the individual. It is a well-known statement of many writers and theologians that there is nothing so tenacious as a religious belief, and as every one of these denominations is the expression of some particular religious belief, how can it be possible for one who is absorbed in allegiance to one belief to turn around and believe another one that is so different? The reason people do not accept Catholicism as the universal religion is that they do not believe in it; the reason they do not accept Unitarianism is because they do not believe in it. You might go on until you had covered ten thousand phases of belief.
How can intelligent people be duped with it? That is another question, and the effort to incorporate a sting has created an anomaly. The question is absurd on its face. Before we take the question up from a Christian Science standpoint, we will see just what it amounts to. What does it mean to be duped by anything? Let us suggest that it means to be misled, deceived, or imposed upon; and reading the question in this way, it would be, How can intelligent people be imposed upon, or deceived, or defrauded by Christian Science? We ask how an intelligent person be duped? That is an intelligent person? An intelligent person is one who manifests intelligence. I would like to ask you ho intelligence can be duped by non-intelligence? If man is intelligent he cannot be duped. If an intelligent man accepts anything, then it is evidence that he is not being duped, but that that which h accepts is genuine; that it appeals to his sense o intelligence and order; and on the other hand if he can be duped he is not intelligent.
Let us see why intelligent people accept Christian Science, or believe in Christian Science. That is a honest question. I remember the first time I wen to Boston to study Christian Science. A literary lady of Boston came into the class one day. She had been healed of disease, and came to the class because she was interested. She and I were stopping at the same hotel, and the next morning, meeting at the breakfast table, we engaged in conversation. She said: "I was surprised at the personnel of that class. They were all adults-serious people of intelligent appearance, all indicating by their actions deep interest and insight. Where did they all come from? Do they all belong here in Boston?" I was about to say they came from all over the world; but remembering, as I did at that moment, that I bad just escaped from years of sickness myself; remembering that right behind me there sat a man who had, while lying in prison during the war, contracted a disease that had prostrated him for twenty years, and that he had been healed; remembering that at my side there sat a woman whose mother had died in the insane asylum, and who, herself, had been taken to the asylum, but was cured by Christian Science; remembering that at my other side there was a woman who for six years had been trying in vain to be healed of asthma, but had also just been healed; remembering these, and a great many other similar cases among the students there assembled, I said to her, "Most of us came from our graves."
How can intelligent people be duped with it? Stand and look into an open grave for months, as I have done; you begin to be serious; you begin to stare eternity in the face; and then, whether you are intelligent or ignorant, if you can turn to that agency which restores you to health, happiness, and usefulness, if you have the wisdom of an infant, you will want to know what it is that has wrought this stupendous transformation. Most of the people who come into Christian Science come because they have been lifted out of a hell of misery.
Why do you maintain a separate denomination? If Christian Science is so good, why not keep it in the other churches? Every denomination is the expression of a belief. When Paul became a Christian the first thing he did was to preach to the Jews. He made an effort to present Christianity to them in such a way that they would espouse it, but they rejected it, and he turned to the Gentiles. Christian Science as a demonstrable statement of Christianity, with proofs following in demonstration of that belief, has been preached to the churches and rejected. The reason why they do not keep it in the old church is that the old church will not have it there.
Why do Christian Scientists maintain a denomination of their own? Christian Science is a religion that is being manifested, among other things, by the healing of the sick. There is a vast difference between the consciousness that knows it can heal the sick and that which knows it cannot. There is a much wider difference between these beliefs than others that have caused separation. You can go down into town and you will find churches on each of four corners. Why do they have separate churches? If what they believe is so good, why not stay in the old church? Why do they hire four ministers, four choirs, and go to the expense of keeping up four establishments? I am not here to criticize the fact that there are four churches on any four corners, but I am bringing it within the range of the discussion of the argument that we are narrow. Christian Scientists are separate by reason of the situation; they cannot coalesce with other denominations, because their doctrine is different from any other. Is not that reason enough? You may say that it is "no good," but that is not the point, for it is the reason why Christian Scientists are a denomination by themselves. They do not segregate because they want to monopolize good; that would not be in accord with Christian Science at all.
Another question is, If this is true, why did not God send it sooner? Why did not He send Moses and the Ten Commandments sooner? Why wait four thousand years for Jesus to come? Why has not every scientific fact come sooner? This question comes from the conception that God has a lot of truth stored up, and doles it out through different eras of history. He is supposed to wait a few thousand years and then sends Moses to tell people they must do so and so, and then in a few thousand more years He sends Jesus. This question comes from a minimized conception of God which includes no understanding of His operations at all. Let us go back and review human history. What were the conditions at the time of Moses? They were as black as ink so far as the mentality was concerned. The people had been in Egypt many years, and were filled full of every form of the black art and occultism. They were as opaque as it was possible to be-hardly one ray of spirituality there. Moses discerned somewhat of God; that was a condition of consciousness where God could be seen, felt, and appreciated. Moses discerned what was the law of God-the nature of God, and what man must do in order to manifest God, and formulated that conception in the declaration, "Thou shalt not."
Then we find that human thought trudges on; here are the prophets, Isaiah, Daniel, Elijah, teaching and admonishing the people, and finally there is just enough attenuation in the condition of human consciousness so that Jesus appears at the proper time and preaches a new dispensation, the law of love, which fulfills all law. Was Jesus in advance of his time, or, on the other hand, was he too late? Of all the people that then existed, how many were ready for him? If you will examine the history of the action of the human mind, you will see that this sublimation had been going on all the time; it is the only reason why this mind has been able to accept his higher metaphysical statement of science or God. This being the truth, you see it could not have come much sooner and created any impression. Notwith-standing that it is today accompanied by the most indisputable phenomena, the ignorance of the human mind yields slowly to the "glad tidings."
Why do Christian Scientists use a vocabulary of words that differ from ordinary English? They do not; positively they do not. If you will look in the dictionary you will find as many as ten different meanings for some words; some of them give the very lowest signification, and then they ascend to higher and more comprehensive definitions. Take the word "infinite." How many can define it? How many really understand it? Some men would say, "This is an infinitely cooler day than yesterday." What kind of use is that to make of the word "infinite"? However, you find that most people have a more comprehensive sense of the word than that. Most words have from one to a dozen meanings, and men use them according to their understanding of these definitions. It is a fact that there is not a word in the vocabulary of Christian Science that is not warranted by the dictionary. The trouble is that ordinary English is not comprehensive enough to convey the meaning of metaphysics; the difficulty in making Christian Science understood is that ordinary language is insufficient in its scope, and that which is partially adequate is not understood. In order to comprehend Christian Science one must work up to the higher signification of these terms.
If medicine is wrong, why do we have herbs with medicinal qualities? I am going to tell you what Dr. Mason Good, a learned professor of London, says: "The effects of medicine on the human system are in the highest degree uncertain; except, indeed, that it has already destroyed more lives than war, pestilence, and famine all combined." That is the testimony concerning the effect of medicine by a learned doctor of medicine. This question is a very common one. A recent eminent. divine is reported to have said that he would be inclined to espouse the doctrines of Christian Science if it were not for the medicine that is growing all around us; that God had created that medicine because He expected people to be sick; and that that is what it is for.
The fact of the matter is, that everything in the vegetable, mineral, and animal kingdom has been doled out to man as medicine for sickness, and he has swallowed it all. If it be admitted that the fact that men have taken all these things as medicine is evidence that God created them for this purpose, we are forced to the irresistible conclusion that God created man to be sick after having created the earth as medicine for him.
I do not think there is much force in this premise, but let us go on and examine the question from a different standpoint. Christian Scientists do not go around saying, "You must not take medicine." hat they do say is this: that you do not need to take medicine in order to be healed; that there is a better way to heal man than by giving him medicine. They realize that the true way of healing the sick is the mental process. They are trying to prove to the invalid that that is the better way. just so soon as he comes to see and depend on this method rather than on medicine, just so soon as he sees that it is something valuable, he will find that it is a better way; he will find that he is not only being healed, but he stays well longer; he does not get sick so often; he gets rid of sickness sooner when he is sick, and so on. We are not here to quarrel with medicine, and especially with people who do not understand these things. People are all depending too much on medicine, a thing which most of them know so little about.
Why do you make charges? Jesus did not charge. In the tenth chapter of Luke you will find some instructions that Jesus gave his disciples. He said, Go; take no money-no purse; preach the gospel, heal the sick; eat what is set before you, and the laborer is worthy of his hire. Taking these two in connection, is it not fair to think that he told them to eat what was set before them, not as beggars and mendicants, but because they were entitled to the provision? This is a figure of speech which he used in order to reach their understanding, and this is the natural, easy, and proper interpretation of it. Jesus sent them out with the instruction that the laborer is worthy of his hire. He recognized the principle of compensation. In those days the social system was very different from what it is now. They did not pay people salaries. It is only a short time since the schoolteacher had to get his board one week at one place and the next week at another. They set something before him, and he accepted it because it was sufficient for what he did. In those days they did not receive pay according to the money standard of today, but they did receive reasonable compensation for what they did.
My dear friends, there is a reverse side to this question that is of great importance. Why do you object to paying for services performed on your behalf? Why are you unwilling to pay the minister who labors for you, and considers it proper to make charges for "preaching the gospel?" Why, to my sense the true minister occupies the most exalted position that man can occupy; in order to do his work faithfully he must exhibit great self-abnegation, being criticized on all sides. Why do you object to paying him for trying to save you? Why is it that the physician, doing the best he knows how to do to relieve humanity; ready to go on all occasions, both day and night; coming in contact with the most fretful, irritable beings on earth-sick people-why is it that you object to paying him? We find that when we get hold of a person who can pay and does not want to, he is one of the hardest people to heal. The fact is, it is a sin, the sin of selfishness, of greed; unwillingness to give credit where credit is due. This willingness to get something for nothing is a sin, and Christian Scientists would be helping to perpetuate that sin if they went to people and healed them for nothing. It would be evil to perpetuate this propensity. if, however, patients cannot pay for treatment, Scientists are perfectly willing to serve them without any compensation whatever.
Even if some get well under the treatment, might they not get well anyway? Yes, decidedly; they might get well under any other treatment. I will go further, and say that a physician of understanding, if he will be candid, will say that seventy-five or eighty per cent of all the cases of sickness that occur would recover spontaneously if they were left alone,-if they had no treatment, no doctor, no change of air, no electricity, or anything else. Seventy-five or eighty per cent of the different ailments, if left alone, would disappear if nothing were done. The ability of any curative system to cope with incorrigible sickness attests its real value, and the healing of hundreds of thousands of cases of hopeless disease constitutes the proof of Christian Science Mind-healing.
Do Christian Scientists believe in the Bible and in prayer? The first of the Tenets of the Christian Science church declares that "as adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 497). We not only believe in the Bible, but find that in the light of Science its mysteries are effaced and all seeming contradictions are reconciled. We believe in prayer without ceasing. We believe in the supreme infinite individuality or spiritual personality of God, who is all Life, Truth, and Love, all-power, all-presence, and all-Science. We also believe in the divinity of Christ and in the resurrection and ascension, and we hold that "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved."