Many souls have been led into spiritual darkness by giving heed to the monstrous delusion of so-called "Christian science"-which, in fact, is neither Christian nor scientific. Christians have allowed it to pass unchallenged because its egregious folly appeared to them unworthy of notice. Intelligent people having been ensnared by it, warns us that when professed followers of Christ lend an ear to teaching which is so dishonoring to Him and God's Word, they are punished by being given over to "strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

Its dogmas are generally vague and confusing, but where doctrines are clearly stated, they are utterly antagonistic to the gospel. They deny the existence of matter, the atonement of Jesus Christ, and other distinctive doctrines of Christianity; declaring that the material world is not real, and what seem to be facts are only ideas. " God is all-there is no room for evil, hence any thing other than good is a belief, an unreality, that has no substance. You are well, for God made all things, and all that He has made is good. You are spirit, hence true and perfect." Of course this teaching dispenses entirely with the atonement; for if there is no sin, there is no need of redemption.

These false teachers assert that there is neither personal Deity, personal devil, nor personal man-a revival of old and oft-refuted heresies under a new name ; the errors of the Docetae, who taught that matter was unreal, and our Lord was born, died, and rose only in appearance ; and the Gnostics, who held that the body of our Lord was a myth ; also that spiritual beings could not be defiled by contact with matter, any more than a diamond by lying in the mire. St. John wrote a portion of his first epistle in refutation of the Gnostic heresy, wherein he sets forth, by divine authority, that Jesus was a veritable person. (i John 4:2, 3.)

It is a reproduction of the old idealism of Hume and Berkley ignoring the existence of matter or disease as a fact. It is related of Berkley that having fallen into a ditch a friend in passing said, " So you have really got into a ditch." " Not exactly that," replied the bishop, as he shook the mud from his clothes, "but you see I have an idea that I am in a ditch."

If as these teachers maintain, " disease is not a reality, but only a delusion of the mind-the effect of fear," how can they account for the physical sufferings of infants ? Our Savior treated sickness and disease as real and actual for we are told that He healed all who were sick, in fulfillment of prophecies concerning Him.

It has been urged in favor of some who set forth these doctrines that they cannot be anti-christian, because they quote Scripture in support of their tenets. When Satan made his most desperate effort to accomplish the everlasting ruin of mankind, he used the Word of God as a means of attaining his end.

Some of the expounders of this belief have been received with favor on account of their mental and moral graces-the loveliness of their daily lives. Satan is too clever to select ignorant disreputable agents for his most powerful assaults on Christianity. He craftily uses persons of scholarship, deep thought, refinement, benevolence, and amiability, as decoys to lure unwary souls to destruction. Some one has truly said that "one of the many hindrances to the cause of true Christianity is, that a counterfeit of the Spirit's work is often presented in the lives of refined moralists, devout religionists, benevolent philanthropists, who are yet as much disowned of God as the most notorious sinners." Never having been born from above, they do not belong to His kingdom, but are aliens and strangers to the covenants of promise, and without Christ.

Let Christians beware of any entanglement with this anti-Christian medley of oriental mysticism, German pantheism, and English deism, which is now presented to them under the misnomer of " Christian science."