FALSE GUIDES APPEAR IN BETHANY

It often happens when people become awakened to the fact that they are below the standard of Christianity and do not as yet see or know what to do, that they become ensnared in destructive doctrines. Having loosed from their old moorings and not having reached a peaceful haven, they drift about, sometimes at the mercy of every wind that blows. When the truth of the gospel begins to appear then the great enemy, Satan, sows his tares, for the ground is then broken up.

Robert Davis’ debates at the schoolhouse, his confession, and his private conversations on the Scriptures, were like rays of light shooting through the rifts in the clouds of the sky. The town of Bethany had never heard such doctrines as Robert was upholding. And even to Robert himself they had not yet been formed into a coherent system of Bible teaching. Several things were still mysteries to him.

Jake Newby and his family were in this partly awakened condition. They had lost confidence in the church to which they belonged, but they did not see the light clearly. They were seekers after the truth.

On one day of the next week after the conversation in his home with the Davis’, Jake and Kate went to the railway station in Bethany to see their Aunt Mellisa off. She had been visiting with her brother, Peter Newby, for a few days and was on her way home to Boston.

While sitting in the station chatting and waiting for the train to come, Kate Newby saw a wall-pocket in the waiting-room on which was a neat sign, “Take One,” filled with printed literature. She stepped to the receptacle and took out two or three pieces of literature which she placed in her handbag, and she thought no more about it till she got home and opened her bag to get her handkerchief.

Something about the leaflet attracted her attention, and she sat down and read it. The pamphlet proclaimed the virtues of Christian Science to heal all kinds of mental and physical sicknesses and troubles. There is no sickness, sin or death, said the treatise. All of these things are errors of mortal mind. We are, it continued, to ignore and repudiate these errors, for God is good and everything is good; God is eternal Mind, all-embracing, and there can be no death, and sin, and sickness in God. Material things, it said, are not important, the spiritual is the important. The basis of all things is the spiritual, hence we can count material things as immaterial and be all engrossed in God. The false notion that there is sickness, it said, has led many to the grave, the false notion that there is a devil has led to the idea of sin. But sin and sickness are errors of the mortal mind, and when we get swallowed up in the one great mind (God), there will be no more sickness, pain, sin, or death. Much more it said which space will not permit us to narrate here.

Kate Newby read on and on. She was longing for something better than she had. The arguments of the pamphlet seemed plausible to her, and she embraced them. Seeing that the Christian Science text-book was advised, she ordered a copy of Mrs. Eddy’s Science and Health. When it arrived she read it assiduously. She was getting very deep into the meshes of it. Her theology was undergoing a radical change. God, to her, was no longer personal, but the great Mind which is all-comprehensive. She tried to believe herself well, free, and happy, and she began to enjoy a measure of relief. But, at the same time, Kate Newby was growing more worldly; she began to lose her former distinctions of right and wrong, and the change was beginning to be made manifest in many different ways. She began to ignore Jake and to show an aversion to material things and she began to develop a sort of overmystical attitude toward life in general.

Finally, Jake asked her point-blank, “Kate, what is the matter with you? You are acting so queer.”

“Well, Jake, I might as well tell you,” answered Kate. “I am a Christian Scientist.”

If Jake Newby had been hit with a cannon ball he would not have been worse shocked.

“Christian Science!” he echoed. “Of all things! Where did you get hold of that?”

Then she told him of getting the leaflet, then Science and Health, and how she had gradually been won to embrace it. Jake was clearly disturbed, and started to argue with Kate, but she had the advantage in that he did not know anything about it. So Jake thought of Robert Davis.

“Say, Robert,” said Jake to Robert the first time that they met after his talk with Kate about Christian Science, “do you know anything about Christian Science?”

“Indeed I do,” said Robert, “my mother once got somewhat entangled in it, and through her efforts to get out I was led to study it.”

“Come over and talk to Kate, then,” said Jake. “She has taken up with it and it is ruining her. Please come over and talk with her about it. We must have help.”

“All right, I will come,” answered Robert.

On the next evening Robert found time to go, and soon he and Kate were talking on Christian Science while Jake and the others listened.

“Now, I will read from Science and Health,” said Robert. “See if you can understand it. See if it does not make you feel like scratching your head in order to help to comprehend it. ’What is man? Answer Man is not matter, he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect.... Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death. The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin’ (page 475). Can you understand that?”

“For the life of me, I can’t,” said Jake, but, of course Jake could not be expected to understand it, thought Kate.

“Now, here is another. ’Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God. We learn in Christian Science that all inharmony of mortal mind and body is illusion.’ Again, ’Sin, sickness, and death are to be classified as effects of error’ (pages 472 and 473)” read Robert.

“I wonder what I am made of,” said Jake’s boy, John, “if I have no brain, blood, or bones. When the bay filly threw me last winter and broke my arm I thought I was part bone. And a lot of blood ran from my foot the time I cut it with the ax, at least they called it blood.”

“Now, let us get Mrs. Eddy’s definition of God,” said Robert. “’What is God? Answer God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.’”

“Let us notice her definition of Mind,” continued Robert. “’Mind is God,’ she says. Let us draw forth some of the Christian Science principles and stand them up for inspection.

“1. Man is not matter; he has not brains, blood, or bones.

“2. Man is incapable of sin.

“3. Man is incapable of sickness.

“4. Man is incapable of death.

“5. Sin, sickness, and death are errors.

“6. God is Mind, Principle.

“7. Mind is God.

“8. Sickness is a dream.

“9. Sickness, sin, and death are ‘mortal dreams.’

“10. ‘There is no disease’ (Science and Health, .

“11. ‘Death is the illusion’ (Science and Health, .

“Now, over and against these statements of Christian Science, let us place the immutable Word of God.

“1. Man is not matter; he is not brains, blood, or bones.

“The very first word in inspiration contradicts this principle in Christian Science. ’In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’ (Ge:1). The creation of man contradicts Christian Science. Listen ’And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.’ (Ge:7).

“So there is such a thing as man composed of matter such as body, and blood, and bones.

“2. Man is incapable of sin.

“Let us see what the Bible says of this proposition,” continued Robert.

“‘For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God’ (Ro:23).

“‘Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures’ (1 Co:3).

“‘He shall save his people from their sins’ (Mat:21).

“3. Man is incapable of sickness.

“‘Is any sick among you’ what shall he do?” asked Robert, quoting Ja:14, 15. “Let him deny that he is sick, and claim that he is incapable of being sick? No. ’Let him call for the elders ... and the prayer of faith shall save the sick.’

“David said of the Lord, ‘Who healeth all thy diseases’ (Ps:3).

“4. Man is incapable of death.

“It seems that no scripture is needed to refute this falsehood. Men of past ages are dead. Mrs. Eddy herself will die, all Christian Scientists die, for ’it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.’”

“My, the Bible is hard on Christian Science doctrine, isn’t it,” said Kate Newby. “I did not think to read and compare Mrs. Eddy’s statements with the Bible.”

“Indeed it is,” said Robert Davis. “The Bible states facts as they are. Man did sin, and all men have sinned. The plan of salvation, in all its vast provisions for men, came about because of man’s need, because of man’s fall. Man has sinned. Oh, it is all too plain to deny. The bruised and wounded hearts of mothers and wives, the bowed heads of grief-stricken fathers over the sins of their loved ones, prove all too painfully that sin is real.”

“I know it is, too,” said Jake Newby. “My heart yearns for deliverance from sin right now. Kate, turn from this deception. You see it is not right. It denies facts.”

“Now, as a matter of fact,” said Robert Davis, “mind has considerable influence over matter, but, after saying that, it is not necessary to go to the absurd extent as to deny that there is matter.”

“I see it now,” said Kate, “there is a subtle connection between mind and our bodies, but I see that if, because of that, I should deny facts, my state would be no better and probably worse. I give up the whole system as being contrary to reason, sense, and the Scriptures.”

A few days after this Robert was called to Kansas City on business, where he remained a week. Now, it so happened that while he was away from home on this business trip, a colporteur of the Seventh-Day Adventists denomination came through the country and sold Mary Davis the book entitled Daniel and the Revelation, also several tracts, one of which was entitled “Who Changed the Sabbath?” Mary Davis had never before heard of anything on the Sabbath question, and when the colporteur told her about how the Sabbath had been changed from Saturday to Sunday (according to Adventist theories), and how they, the Adventists, were in a great reformation to restore the Sabbath-day, she was considerably interested. Open-hearted for truth, she was peculiarly susceptible at that time to the claims of Adventism.

Mary spent the next few days in reading her newly bought literature. It seemed plausible to her that if God gave the Ten Commandments as a perpetual covenant, the seventh day should still be kept. The more she read the more she was convinced. By the time Robert returned she had begun to count herself a seventh-day keeper. Robert Davis was surprised beyond measure when he returned and found his house full of Advent literature.

“Well, Mary dear, what does all this mean?” asked Robert kindly.

“Why, Robert,” she said, “while you were gone a colporteur came here with these books. He seemed so earnest and he talked for hours about a reformation and how the Catholics had changed the Sabbath and about how God had set himself to restore the day to Christendom. I have been reading the books and they make it very plain that we ought to keep Saturday.”

“Now, come here, dear,” said Robert, “let me point out to you the false and unscriptural position which these zealots hold.”

Mary felt a little indignant at this, but she complied, willing to know the truth. However, she was secretly determined to keep the Sabbath-day unless very good reasons were shown why she should not.

“First, Mary, let me ask a few questions,” said Robert. “Did the colporteur say anything about living holy or nearer to God?”

“No,” said Mary, “he talked almost exclusively about the Sabbath-day.”

“Very well,” said Robert. “Did he say the Ten Commandments were still in full force?”

“Yes, he did, Robert, and he made it very plain that God’s law could not change,” said Mary.

“Did he say the Catholics changed the Sabbath-day from Saturday to Sunday?” asked Robert.

“Yes, he did,” replied Mary.

“Now, Mary, get your Bible, please,” said Robert. “Turn to 2 Co, and begin reading with verse 7.”

“’But if the ministration of death, written and engraven with stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:’” read Mary.

“You need not read the rest of the chapter now,” said Robert, “but this verse and the verses following show beyond all question or argument that the Ten Commandments were a ‘ministration of death’ and were abolished in Christ. That law was glorious, but that glory was eclipsed by the greater glory of the New Testament law. Now turn to Ga:21-31. Read verse 24 first.”

“’Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants; the one from mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar,’” read Mary.

“This passage proves,” said Robert, “that Paul was showing by Abraham’s two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, Isaac by Sarah, and Ishmael by Hagar, that the covenant at Sinai was to be cast out, just as Hagar and Ishmael were cast out of Abraham’s home. The verse you read declares that the Ten Commandments, covenant, law, and all from Sinai correspond with Hagar. What happened to her? She was cast out. So the old Ten-Commandment law is cast out in favor of a better one. Now turn to Hebrews 8 and read the last verse.”

“’In that he saith, a new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.’”

“Plain enough, isn’t it, Mary?” asked Robert. “God found fault with the old covenant (see verse 7) and so he took it away.”

“But, Robert,” said Mary, “does this mean that it is right to lie, or steal, or kill? If the Ten Commandments are done away with, how will these sins be condemned?” And Mary was really puzzled about it.

“Why, Mary,” said Robert, “the Ten Commandments did not make it wrong to lie and steal. It was always wrong to lie and steal even before there were any Ten Commandments. Wrong is wrong. Now in Christ’s law every possible wrong is condemned. Do you see the point? Now, the Sabbath-day law is the Fourth Commandment of the Ten. But that Sabbath law was given to the Jews only. They could keep it where they lived, but everybody can’t keep it now at the same time even if they should want to.”

“You see we live on a round earth,” continued Robert, “and the sun shines somewhere all the time. Now Israel could keep the seventh day all right in Palestine, but suppose that they had been scattered over all the earth? Then a Jew in Australia would be keeping his Sabbath about eighteen hours before his brother in California. The day begins out in the Pacific Ocean, not because it really begins there, but because for the sake of convenience it was fixed to begin there. The whole arrangement is artificial. Now, would God put so much emphasis on keeping a certain day under such circumstances? Adventists think it is very wrong to work on the Sabbath-day, yet some of them work as much as twelve hours while their brethren on the other side of the earth are keeping their Sabbath. It is impossible for all the earth to keep the Sabbath at the same time.”

“Well, I never thought of that before,” said Mary, as her Adventism began to leave her about as quickly as it came.

“Now the fact is, too, Mary,” said Robert, “that the Catholics did not change the Sabbath-day. They may claim to have done so and the Adventists accept the claim, it appears, but the early Christians kept the first day of the week Sunday, long before there was any Roman Catholic Church or any pope at Rome. Adventists twist history here just like they twist the Scriptures.”

“Listen here, dear,” continued Robert. “’I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day’ (Re:10). What day was the Lord’s Day? It was not Saturday, the Sabbath. Pentecost, that grand birthday of the church, was on Sunday (Acts 2:1-4). The disciples met to break bread on the first day of the week Sunday (Acts 20:6, 7). The laying-by of the collection for the saints was made on the first day of the week Sunday (1 Co:1, 2). On the Sabbath-day Jesus lay cold in death in the borrowed tomb while the sad and disconsolate disciples mourned the death of the Prince of Israel, their Savior. But on Sunday morning Christ arose triumphant (John 20:1) and in memory of it Christians began early to observe Sunday as a day of worship.”

“Mary, you were just about to be entangled with a yoke of bondage, a yoke of man’s making,” said Robert. “This Sabbath doctrine of the Adventists is utterly man-made. In their writings the apostles did not teach the keeping of it; so why go away back to bleak and smoking Sinai for a law to keep when Jesus offers us a new covenant? Why those Adventists are trying to prop up a law that was old, and decayed, and ready to vanish away in Paul’s time.”

“Did Constantine make a Sunday law, Robert?” asked Mary.

“Yes, he did. In A.D. 321, Constantine legalized the day of worship that the Christians already were using,” said Robert. “The Adventists claim that Constantine changed the day, but he did not. There is no history at all to support their theory. He was the first Christian emperor of Rome and simply gave legal sanction to a day already set apart for worship, which was Sunday. This was long before there was any pope.”

“Well, I am very glad you came home when you did,” said Mary. “It was a providence. I see the snare set for me, and I shall fly out from it, by God’s grace.”