Page:Valid Objections to So-called Christian Science (1902).pdf/22

 what has it to say of Christ's coming into the flesh? If mind be all, why this necessity? Was this astounding fact of history a mere mental chimera, or was it a real objective occurrence, attested by the physical senses, and worthy of actual belief? If not the latter, any myth ingeniously devised would suit or serve humanity as well. What is the meaning of Christ's sufferings? Were they real or were they merely vain shadows? And was He an incarnation of error?

What becomes of the significance of the cross? Of the laying down of the divine life, of the Resurrection and Ascension, if men's wills are entirely the masters of their own fates and can reason away all things deadly, sinful or destructive? These Christian conceptions must, then, be worthless; for they are absolutely antagonistic to any philosophy which rests its fundamental belief on a structure of intangibilities. They cannot form any part of it.

What place is found for the Christian Sacraments which are woven in the very fiber of the genius of Christianity? Why an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace, if there be none but subjective actualities? Can