USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > Waterbury > A century of history in the First Baptist Church in Waterbury, Conn > Part 3
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become the corporate and articulate conscience of the state; though like the conscience and unlike the state, it would have no policemen or hangmen behind it." We enter the twentieth century in frank recognition of its stores of knowledge, for it is the heir of all the ages; but the Church must supply that which the schools cannot give.
In the community at large there is wide diffu- sion of the knowledge of right, but there is no adequate motive to perform it. Men see and ap- prove the better, but follow the worse. The church proclaims among men the great motive, declares to every man Him who loves him and gives Himself for him, that the man in a return of love may be made a new creature and live a new life. The nineteenth century emphasized the world-wide mission of the gospel, the twenti- eth not losing sight of that, but entering the wide- open door to evangelize the earth, will give new meaning to the gospel doctrine of individualism by emphasizing anew the annunciation: "Ye must (ye may) be born again." A saved world has its ground in the saving of the individuals that populate the earth, and that is to be affected not by any new gospel of service, of philan- thropy, or any such thing, but by the old gospel of rebirth.
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THE MINISTERS' CONFERENCE.
The united gathering of the New Haven Bap- tist Association Ministers' Conference, the Hart- ford Baptist Association Ministers' Conference, and the Waterbury Protestant Ministers' Club met at the First Baptist Church in Waterbury, on Monday, Nov. 2, 1903, as a feature of the cen- tennial celebration of the founding of the church. The meeting was called to order by Rev. Oscar Haywood at 10.35 A. M., and opened by singing " My Faith Looks Up to Thee." On motion of Mr. Haywood, Rev. Joseph Anderson, D.D., was appointed chairman of the session. The confer- ence was led in prayer by Dr. Anderson, at the close of which all united in the Lord's Prayer. On motion of Mr. Haywood, Rev. George B. Cutten, Ph.D., was appointed secretary. The essay of the morning was read by Rev. G. F. Genung, D.D., the subject being “ The Character and Theology of John."
It was an admirable treatment of the subject, remarkably clear both in idea and expression, so
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that the thought could be easily grasped even by the non-theological mind. His analysis of the character and temperament of the beloved dis- ciple was clear, logical, and incisive, and the synthetical conclusions reached were plausibly in harmony with his analysis.
In the discussion which followed the chief interest seemed to center around the question suggested by the criticisms of Mr. Hanna, whether some expressions in the paper might not be liable to a construction which would make John instead of Christ the author of the Johannine the- ology, and so that the author of the fourth gospel might be regarded as having evolved a Christ out of his own consciousness, his own peculiarly mystical, emotional temperament, and put the expression of his own conceptions into the mouth of Jesus; whether, indeed, the essayist had been sufficiently careful to show that the peculiarities of John's character and temperament were such that they enabled him to apprehend, resolve in his mind, and record such facts and expressions in the ministry of Christ as might have escaped the notice, or failed to reach the inward percep- tion and be retained in the memory, of those of the disciples who were more interested in the ob-
DEACON WILLIAM O'NEILL,
Who has successfully conducted the Men's Bible Class for 21 years, and failed of attendance but three times during that period.
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jective manifestations of the divine life of the Master. To a majority of the ministers present, nearly all of whom took part in the discussion, the paper as a whole did not seem liable to such a construction, and was highly complimented as an admirable piece of literature and of analytical and theological work.
At one o'clock a recess was taken to enable those present to partake of a most bountiful collation, in the preparation and serving of which the ladies of the church did themselves much honor, and were complimented accordingly in after-dinner speeches by Rev. W. D. Mckinney, Rev. F. D. Buckley, Rev. W. G. Thomas, and Rev. F. B. Stockdale.
AFTERNOON SESSION.
At 2.35 P. M. the conference reassembled, and after singing "Am I a Soldier of the Cross?" Rev. W. H. Bawden, vice-president of the New Haven Conference, took the chair. Prayer was offered by Rev. W. D. Mckinney. A most ex- cellent and interesting essay on "Christian Science from the Standpoint of Orthodox Chris- tianity " was read by Rev. R. A. Ashworth. The large audience which filled the room at this ses- sion included many Christian Scientists.
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CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND ORTHODOX CHRISTIANITY.
BY REV. ROBERT A. ASHWORTH.
For almost all the
Christian Scientists whom it is my pleas- ure to know I have only respect. For the lives of some of them I have admiration, for they are sweet and beautiful. Their pe- culiar tenets have REV. ROBERT A. ASHWORTH. not yet sifted below their eyebrows. Their hearts are Christian still, whatever may be the condition of their heads. Their dogmas seem to give many of them comfort, and often incite to a high type of morality. Let me say nothing in their disparagement.
It is because I believe that the doctrine which they profess carries with it elements which
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are unchristian, and antagonistic and destructive to Christianity that I undertake to speak upon the subject. Christian charity will speak no ill of the Scientist; but, inasmuch as it " rejoices in the truth," it must set its face like a flint against the stupendous and dangerous errors of the Science. What is new in Christian Science is not true : what is true in it is not new. It is said of the " guinea pig " that its name is correct with two exceptions : first, it is not a pig, and second, it is not from Guinea. So Christian Science is a misnomer in that the thing it stands for is neither Christian, nor scientific.
It is to the strange collection of truths, half- truths, and errors known as Christian Science that I address myself. In the few minutes at my disposal, however, it is obvious that I cannot speak with the detail and thoroughness which the subject demands. If, as we wander in "the mazes of Eddystalk," I become confused in the vagaries and vaporings which envelop the sub- ject and fail to lead you out again into the clear air of the ordinary, common, or garden variety of sense in which you are accustomed to take your daily exercise, do not, I beg of you, lay it altogether to deficiency of gray matter on my
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part. With all my attempts to resist the " false claims " which "mortal mind " is continually making upon me, the sublimated atmosphere of Christian Science proves at times too much for me, and its fumes affect me with the delusive symptoms of asphyxiation. In vain do I assure myself in the words of Mrs. Eddy that " nerves are parts of a belief that there is sensation in matter, whereas matter is devoid of sensation." Christian Science is continually getting on to the place where my nerves ought to be if it were permitted to " immortal man " to have such lux- uries. I confess to a personal grievance against Christian Science in that it treats me continually with as great a lack of consideration as did the elusive flea the Irishman, who said of it: "The first time I caught him I missed him, and the second time I caught him I missed him where I caught him the first time."
"Can an 'immortal man' with a sense of humor become a Christian Scientist?" I should like to add that question with its answer to the questions and answers in Mrs. Eddy's " Miscel- laneous Writings ; " but I believe the canon is now closed. It is a pity, as it would look well in con- junction with the following which we find there :
DEACON JOHN LITTLEJOHN.
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Question : "How does Mrs. Eddy know that she has read and studied correctly if one must deny the evidence of the senses? She had to use her eyes to read." Answer: "Jesus said, 'Hav- ing eyes ye see not.' I read the inspired page through a higher than mortal sense. As matter the eye cannot see, and as mortal mind it is a belief that sees. I may read the Scriptures through a belief of eyesight; but I must spiritu- ally understand them to interpret their science." Now, perhaps, if you will rub the cobwebs out of your brains and ponder a while you will under- stand that a good deal better than I can. I do not pretend to fathom it. But I will add this evidence in the case, that, whether with eyesight or belief of eyesight, the last time I saw a Chris- tian Scientist reading, she was wearing spec- tacles !
A sorely afflicted woman writes to Mrs. Eddy with the sad ring of despair in her words: "How can I believe that there is no such thing as matter, when I weigh over two hundred pounds, and carry about this weight?" (Alas, how can you, poor soul!) Cold comfort only has the sage of Concord to offer in her reply: " By learning that matter is but manifest mortal mind.
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You entertain an adipose belief of yourself as substance!" This is Mrs. Eddy's famous " anti- fat! "
Imagine yourself the victim of a boil of the peculiarly aggressive kind with which we are familiar, situated just where shirt and collar come together. Run to Mrs. Eddy with it and she will look you squarely in the eye and say: " You say a boil is painful; but that is impos- sible, for matter without mind is not painful. The boil simply manifests your belief in pain, through inflammation and swelling; and you call this belief a boil. Now administer mentally to your patient a high attenuation of truth on this subject, and it will soon cure the boil." I should call Mrs. Eddy peculiarly unconvincing under some circumstances! Christian Scientists will listen to that sort of thing on Sunday morning and look each other full in the eye, and preserve perfect gravity! Are we losing our sense of humor? The exegesis of one who divides the name Adam into two syllables so that it will read " a dam, or obstruction," and then builds an elaborate argument on the basis of the same, is seriously listened to! Mrs. Eddy cured a man of an inflammation due to eating too much
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smoked herring. She solemnly declares that she thus demonstrated the truth of the Bible state- ment that man shall have dominion over the " fish of the sea!" Yet nobody smiles! Recently it was testified of a Christian Scientist at a famous trial in New York that she had given a rubber plant absent treatment to make it grow, though, as it appeared, with indifferent results. But Mrs. Eddy, the founder, has more skill than her pupil, for in reference to the beautiful elms in the gar- den of her Concord home she declares: "My faith has the strength to nourish trees as well as souls!" This suggests a new opening for the Christian Scientist in the realm of landscape gar- dening !
But Christian Science deserves fair and serious treatment because of the quality of its advocates and adherents both as to intelligence and deport- ment. It merits it moreover, because of the good influence it is exerting in one direction at least, through the protest it has already registered against the prevailing materialism of our time. Its emphasis upon the spiritual is distinctly good. Theosophy, Spiritualism, and Christian Science with all their errors tend at least to restore the rightful supremacy of the spiritual. Christian
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Science should have our studious attention also because so many of those who attend our churches are interested in its teaching and because some of them are by it being led away from Christ and the truth.
The rapid growth of Christian Science, how- ever, is not to be ascribed to its peculiar philoso- phy. There are thousands of Christian Scientists who have but the faintest understanding of Mother Eddy's theories of the universe, yet whose faith in them is as boundless as that of the little child who exclaimed: " It's so, whether it's so or not, because Mother says so!" As a Scien- tist reader said to me not long ago: "We don't any of us understand it very well, but we believe we are upon the right track because it has done so much for us." A large majority of Christian Science adherents have doubtless been brought into the fold through the experience of physical benefit from Christian Science teaching. When a Boston clergyman remonstrated with Judge Hanna for enticing a separate congregation rather than offering their strength to unite with congregations already established, he replied that Christian Science did not recruit itself from other churches, but from the graveyards. Another
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Christian Scientist has said: "Stand and look into an open grave for months, as I have done; all the little fleeting joys of earth seem as noth- ing compared with it; 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 transfor- mation. Most of the people who come into Christian Science come because they have been lifted out of a hell of misery."
It is not to be wondered at that people thus cured of their ailments by Christian Science are guilty of the vicious non sequitur of supposing that the fact of the cure proves the truth of the theory. In so doing they but follow the leading of their teacher. Says Mrs. Eddy: " Christian Science reveals incontrovertibly that mind is all in all, that the only realities are the divine mind and idea. This great fact is not, however, seen to be supported by sensible evidence, until its divine principle is demonstrated by healing the sick, and thus proven absolute and divine. This proof once seen, no other conclusion can be reached."
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But the fact is that the reported cures have about as much bearing upon the truth of the philosophy as the historic fly on the rim of the chariot wheel had to do with the dust in which he moved. If I could turn my pen into a pen- wiper, it would not, as Matthew Arnold, I think, somewhere observes, prove that I am a good man. Neither does the cure of many forms of disease by Christian Science prove that matter has no real existence or that the name " Adam " means, among other things, " the belief in orig- inal sin, sickness, and death."
For many of the reputed cures of Christian Science mother Nature should doubtless be given the credit. Nature is forever mending. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes doubtless speaks truly when he says that " the great proportion of cases of sickness tend to get well, sooner or later, with good nursing and little or no medicine."
Yet apart from the curative ministry of nature, Christian Science has, within limits, a large ther- apeutic value. It does cure, and it cures by a scientific method, by the power of the mind over the body, through suggestion. In the case of most functional and of some organic diseases this method produces undoubted results. To the
DEACON EDWARD L. ASHLEY.
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same principle is due the wide prevalence and success of exorcism, fetichism, touching sacred relics, visiting shrines, spells, amulets, mesmer- ism. The man who travels to the shrine at Lourdes, or who visits the relics at St. Anne de Beaupre, if he is cured at all, is cured by sugges- tion. It is the belief that cures, though the belief may rest upon false grounds and be itself untrue. Unfortunately the suggestion which cures the pilgrim to Lourdes and the suggestion which cures the body of the devotee of Christian Science depends upon the acceptance of ideas which have a most deleterious and destructive effect upon the mind and spirit. The body profits at the ulti- mate expense of the soul. It is my conviction that suggestion in one form or another will be increasingly used as the agent in the cure of bodily ills ; but not the suggestion which depends for its value upon the acceptance of the philoso- phy of Christian Science, whose premises are false and whose conclusions are pernicious.
The doctrine of Christian Science which sticks most hard in the crop of common thinking is that of the unreality of matter. Yet this is the very base of the philosophy. As Mr. Carol Norton flatly puts it : " All is mind, there is no matter."
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We are here, of course, upon old ground which has been fought over time and time again before you and I were born, first in the Orient in the ancient Vedas, then from Bishop Berkeley to the present day. The war has shifted from Eng- land to the continent and back again. It is a problem which each of us has to face and to fight for ourselves. "He who never doubted the existence of matter," said the eminent French economist Turgot, "may be assured he has no aptitude for metaphysical inquiries."
"Let visions of the night or of the day Come, as they will; and many a time they come, Until this earth he walks on seems not earth, This light that strikes his eyeball is not light, This air that smites his forehead is not air, But vision - yea, his very hand and foot - In moments when he feels he cannot die, And knows himself no vision to himself, Nor the high God a vision."
But it is the use to which Mrs. Eddy puts this idealism of hers that makes the value of her sys- tem to her devotees. Mind is all, mind is one, mind is God, and so on. God is defined as " Di- vine Principle, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind." Man is defined as "God's universal
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idea, individual, perfect, eternal." "All that really exists is the Divine mind and its idea." All minds are but emanations of the One Divine Mind, and like it are eternal and divine. Mrs. Eddy indignantly repudiates the charge of pan- theism, understanding by the term, "the false doctrine that God, or Life, is in or of matter." Evidently she has not heard of that idealistic pantheism, of which her system, if it be a system, is a confused type.
Well, then, God being all, and man spiritual one with the Divine Spirit, whence comes evil? God cannot have created it, since God is good; and there is nothing else that can have created it, since God is all there is. Ergo, there is no such thing! Anyone with sufficient agility in mental gymnastics may easily follow Mrs. Eddy thus far.
Let us see, then, no matter, no evil, i. e., sin, or sickness, or death - the question next arises : " How did we ever come to think there were such things ? " Here comes in a creation of Mrs. Eddy's own, "mortal mind," which impudently and arrogantly invents and asserts all these wrong ideas which are foreign to the mind of God and of immortal man. It is rather discon-
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certing after reading so much that Mrs. Eddy has to say about "mortal mind " and its crimes and errors, to come suddenly upon such a state- ment as this: "In reality there is no mortal mind, and consequently no transference of mortal thought and will power." But one gets used to almost anything while reading Mrs. Eddy, and is not easily disturbed.
This " mortal mind " then (which itself does not really exist) builds up its dream world of sickness, sin, and death, which becomes real to it as long as it believes in it. Now for the cure for it all. Strike this "baseless fabric of a dream " at its very foundation! "Destroy the thought of sin, sickness, death, and you destroy their existence." From your standpoint of spirit- ual understanding deny the illusions of mortal mind and they disappear. "When your belief in pain ceases the pain stops, for matter has no in- telligence of its own."
" If you believed you were sick should you say, ' I am sick?'" asks Mrs. Eddy. "No," she re- plies ; "mortal material sense might answer yes ; but these senses do not report the truth of your being. If you commit a crime, should you ac- knowledge to yourself that you are a criminal?
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DEACON SIDNEY RISDON.
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Yes," answers Mrs. Eddy with complete incon- sistency, but with a practical moral purpose in view, I suppose. "Your responses," she pro- ceeds, naïvely, " should differ because of the dif- ferent effects they produce. To admit that you are sick renders your case less curable; while to recognize your sin aids in destroying it. The truth regarding error is, that error is not true, hence it is unreal (a strange juggling with words) ! To prove scientifically the unreality of sin you must first see the claim of sin and then destroy it. Whereas to prove scientifically that disease is unreal, you must mentally unsee the disease, and then you will not feel it, and it is destroyed." You will notice that though the method of proof differs, what is regarded as scientifically proved in each case is that sickness and sin are alike unreal, i. e. have no real exist- ence, are a mere delusion.
We cannot stop to discuss these strange phan- tasies. Of the illusion of the illusoriness of matter let me note only that the Christian Scien- tist has not yet " demonstrated high enough," as I suppose she would put it, to live without food. Mrs. Eddy says: "I do not maintain that you and I can exist in the flesh without breath, food,
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and raiment; but I do believe that man is im- mortal, and that he lives in spirit and forever."
Let me warn you, however, not to question a Christian Scientist on this inconsistency. She (I speak of them in the feminine gender, since it is a feminine philosophy) can turn in one-half her own length, in a shorter relative space than any other creature under heaven.
As to the more critical question, from what is this " mortal mind " of which Mrs. Eddy has so much to say, this human faculty of producing il- lusions, evolved, I can say little more at this time. Is it from God? Impossible, for it is the source of all evil. Yet God is all-in-all. Whence came it then? Mrs. Eddy has no reply. Like Mahomet's coffin it hangs between heaven and earth! Either it is a case of spontaneous combus- tion, or Mrs. Eddy made it herself !
But we must restrain "mortal mind " in its constant tendency to treat this subject flippantly. There are grave dangers in this increasingly pop- ular superstition. It is a "science falsely so called, which some professing have erred con- cerning the faith."
Its danger consists first in error concerning God. God is defined as "the great I am, all
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knowing, all seeing, all acting, all wise, and eter- nal principal, mind, soul, spirit, love, truth, life, substance, intelligence." Is this God a person? No, he is a medical prescription ! " The divine principle, not person," says the Concord philoso- pher, " is the father and mother of mind and the universe." It is a principle with which Mrs. Eddy deals. A friend of mine writes: “A young man recently came to me who had gone through Christian Science into atheism. I asked him to describe the path he had passed over. He answered: 'The Christian Science teacher be- gan by thoroughly persuading me that God is not personal but pure principle. After some months I accepted that, and then I said to my- self, what is a principle? Does it have real ex- istence? Is it an entity or reality? I soon saw that a principle is simply an idea of my own mind, and when the Scientist dissolved my God into principle I ceased to believe in any God whatever. I now simply believe in myself.'"
The Christology of Christian Science, its doc- trine of Christ, is false and destructive. Flesh being an illusion, Christ came in the flesh in no real sense. Christ indeed is defined as Christian Science: " There is but one way to heaven and
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harmony, and Christ, Christian Science, shows us the way." Christ is not the way, but the " way shower." Though a Christian Scientist, Christ is not an adept, for "Had wisdom characterized all his sayings he would not have prophesied his own death and therefore hastened it." The burial of Jesus was his annihilation. "The in- visible Christ was incorporeal, whereas Jesus was a corporeal or bodily existence. This dual per- sonality of the seen and the unseen, the Jesus and the Christ, continued until the Master's ascen- sion, and then the human, the corporeal concept or Jesus, disappeared; while the invisible, the spiritual idea or the Christ, continued to exist in the eternal order of Divine Science, taking away the sins of the world, as the Christ had always done, even before the human Jesus was incarnate to mortal eyes."
Well may the disciple of this new teaching ex- claim: " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him!"
Its doctrine of Redemption is false. Christian Science resents the insinuation of disbelief in prayer, but it is nevertheless prayerless in any true meaning of the word. It declares "the habit of pleading with the divine mind, as one
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pleads with the human being, perpetuates the belief in God as humanly circumscribed - an error which impedes spiritual growth; " also that " God is not influenced by man." A critic has said, " To the devout Christian, Christian Science will say : ' Of course we believe in prayer ; we use the Lord's prayer at every service.' To the oppo- nent of Christianity it will as glibly say: 'You know in what sense we pray - it is by affirming principle !'"
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