16 



ANNUAL ADDRESS. 



what is meant. But what does Mrs. Eddy mean when she uses 

 such a phrase to prove the efficacy of Christian Science to ward 

 off death and sickness ? 



Do not let us underrate the effect of such teaching as I have 

 been describing, the delusion itself is not its worst effect ; see 

 what it leads to even with able and learned men. 



I am going to quote what has been said by a learned professor. 

 T feel the respect his learning demands, but to agree with him 

 in matters of revelation is to make our reason the standard and 

 measure of the doctrines revealed to us through apostles, to 

 •contend that their doctrines should be such as to carry with 

 them their own justification, to reject them if they come into 

 •conflict with our own existing stock of knowledge, and thus to 

 accept a rationalistic spirit in the acknowledgment of faith — 

 for faith is in its very nature the acceptance of what our 

 reason cannot reach simply and absolutely upon testimony. 



This is what the professor in question has done. His own 

 mind is the measure of what he thinks God must be, and here 

 is what he says : — 



" The line of least resistance then as it seems to me both 

 in theology and in philosophy is to accept along with the 

 superhuman consciousness the notion that it is not all-embracing, 

 the notion, in other words, that there is a God, but that He is 

 finite either in power or in knowledge, or in both at once." 



Alas ! is this the conclusion — the Christian Hope, the 

 "Christian Faith. The idea of compromise on such a subject. 

 At all events, I hope that in this Institute we shall not 

 recognise anything but the faith once delivered to the saints. 



