CHRISTIANSAND (KRISTIANSAND), a fortified seaport of Norway, the chief town of a diocese (_stift_), on a fjord of the Skagerrack, 175 m. S.W. of Christiania by sea. Pop. (1900) 14,701. It stands on a square peninsula flanked by the western and eastern harbours and by the Otter river. The situation, with its wooded hills and neighbouring islands, is no less beautiful than that of other south-coast towns, but the substitution of brick for wood as building material after a fire in 1892 made against the picturesqueness of the town. There is a fine cathedral, rebuilt in Gothic style after a fire in 1880. Christiansand is an important fishing centre (salmon, mackerel, lobsters), and sawmills, wood-pulp factories, shipbuilding yards and mechanical workshops are the principal industrial works. The port is the largest on the south coast, and all the coast steamers, and those serving Christiania from London, Hull, Grangemouth, Hamburg, &c., touch here. The Saetersdal railway follows that valley north to Byglandsfiord (48 m.), whence a good road continues to Viken i Valle at the head of the valley. Flekkerö, a neighbouring island, is a favourite pleasure resort. The town was founded in 1641 by Christian IV., after whom it was named.
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, a system of theosophic and therapeutic doctrine, which was originated in America about 1866 by Mrs Mary Baker Glover Eddy, and has in recent years obtained a number of adherents both in the United States and in European countries. Mrs. Eddy (1821-1910; _née_ Baker) was born near Concord, New Hampshire; in 1843 she married Colonel G.W. Glover (d. 1844), in 1853 she married Daniel Patterson (divorced 1873), and in 1877 Dr Asa Gilbert Eddy (d. 1883). About the year 1867 she came forward as a healer by mind-cure. She based her teaching on the Bible, and on the principles that man's essential nature is spiritual, and that, the Spirit of God being Love and Good, moral and physical evil are contrary to that Spirit, and represent an absence of the True Spirit which was in Jesus Christ. There is but one Mind, one God, one Christ, and nothing real but Mind. Matter and sickness are subjective states of error, delusions which can be dispelled by the mental process of a true knowledge of God and Christ, or Christian science. Ordinary _medical_ science--using drugs, &c.--is therefore irrelevant; spiritual treatment is the only cure of what is really mental error. Jesus himself healed by those means, which were therefore natural and not miraculous, and promised that those who believed should do curative works like his. In 1876 a Christian Scientist Association was organized. Mrs Eddy had published in the preceding year a book entitled _Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures_, which has gone through countless editions and is the gospel of Christian Science. In 1879 she became the pastor of a "Church of Christ, Scientist," in Boston, and also founded there the "Massachusetts Metaphysical College" (1881; closed 1889) for the furtherance of her tenets. The first denominational chapel outside Boston was built at Oconto, Wisconsin, in 1886; and in 1894 (enlarged and reconstructed in 1906) a great memorial church was erected in Boston. Mrs Eddy's publications also include _Retrospection and Introspection_ (1891), _Unity of Good and Unreality of Evil_ (1887), _Rudimental Divine Science_ (1891), _Christian Healing_ (1886), &c. The progress of the cult of Christian Science has been remarkable, and by the beginning of the 20th century many hundreds of Christian Science churches had been established; and the new religion found many adherents also in England. A purely local and congregational form of government was adopted, but Christian Scientists naturally looked to the mother church in Boston, with Mrs Eddy as its guiding influence, as their centre. A monthly magazine, _The Christian Science Journal_ (founded in 1883), and the weekly _Christian Science Sentinel_ are published officially in Boston.