Christian Science In Tremont Temple

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2      From the platform of the Monday lectureship in
         Tremont Temple, on Monday, March 16, 1885, as
         will be seen by what follows. Reverend Mary Baker G.
5      Eddy was presented to Mr. Cook’s audience, and allowed
         ten minutes in which to reply to his public letter con-
         demning her doctrines; which reply was taken in full by
         a shorthand reporter who was present, and is transcribed
         below.

10    Mrs. Eddy responding, said: —

         As the time so kindly allotted me is insufficient for
         even a synopsis of Christian Science, I shall confine my-
         self to questions and answers.

         Am I a spiritualist?

15    I am not, and never was. I understand the impossi-
         bility of intercommunion between the so-called dead and
         living. There have always attended my life phenomena
         of an uncommon order, which spiritualists have mis-
         called mediumship; but I clearly understand that no
20    human agencies were employed,—that the divine Mind
         reveals itself to humanity through spiritual law. And
         to such as are “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
         of our body,” Christian Science reveals the in-

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1      finitude of divinity and the way of man’s salvation from
         sickness and death, as wrought out by Jesus, who robbed
         the grave of victory and death of its sting. I understand
         that God is an ever-present help in all times of trouble,—
5      have found Him so; and would have no other gods, no
         remedies in drugs, no material medicine.

         Do I believe in a personal God?

         I believe in God as the Supreme Being. I know not
         what the person of omnipotence and omnipresence is,
10    or what the infinite includes; therefore, I worship that
         of which I can conceive, first, as a loving Father and
         Mother; then, as thought ascends the scale of being to
         diviner consciousness, God becomes to me, as to the
         apostle who declared it, “God is Love,”—divine Prin-
15    ciple,—which I worship; and “after the manner of my
         fathers, so worship I God.”

         Do I believe in the atonement of Christ?

         I do; and this atonement becomes more to me since
         it includes man’s redemption from sickness as well as
20    from sin. I reverence and adore Christ as never before.

         It brings to my sense, and to the sense of all who enter-
         tain this understanding of the Science of God, a whole
         salvation.

         How is the healing done in Christian Science?

25    This answer includes too much to give you any con-
         clusive idea in a brief explanation. I can name some
         means by which it is not done.

         It is not one mind acting upon another mind; it is
         not the transference of human images of thought to
30    other minds; it is not supported by the evidence before
         the personal senses,—Science contradicts this evidence;
         it is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. It is Christ come

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1      to destroy the power of the flesh; it is Truth over error;
         that understood, gives man ability to rise above the evi-
         dence of the senses, take hold of the eternal energies of
         Truth, and destroy mortal discord with immortal har-
5      mony,—the grand verities of being. It is not one mortal
         thought transmitted to another’s thought from the human
         mind that holds within itself all evil.

         Our Master said of one of his students, “He is a devil,”
         and repudiated the idea of casting out devils through
10    Beelzebub. Erring human mind is by no means a de-
         sirable or efficacious healer. Such suppositional healing
         I deprecate. It is in no way allied to divine power. All
         human control is animal magnetism, more despicable
         than all other methods of treating disease.

15    Christian Science is not a remedy of faith alone, but
         combines faith with understanding, through which we
         may touch the hem of His garment; and know that om-
         nipotence has all power. “I am the Lord, and there is
         none else, there is no God beside me.”

20    Is there a personal man?

         The Scriptures inform us that man was made in the
         image and likeness of God. I commend the Icelandic
         translation: “He created man in the image and likeness
         of Mind, in the image and likeness of Mind created
25    He him.” To my sense, we have not seen all of man;
         he is more than personal sense can cognize, who is the
         image and likeness of the infinite. I have not seen a
         perfect man in mind or body,—and such must be the
         personality of him who is the true likeness: the lost
30    image is not this personality, and corporeal man is this
         lost image; hence, it doth not appear what is the real
         personality of man. The only cause for making this

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1      question of personality a point, or of any importance, is
         that man’s perfect model should be held in mind, whereby
         to improve his present condition; that his contemplation
         regarding himself should turn away from inharmony, sick-
5      ness, and sin, to that which is the image of his Maker.