I agree with Mrs. Eddy as to the necessity of eliminating a medical fetish, but I disagree with her about religiously preserving a theological one. I have read "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" for twenty years, and I have also read the Scriptures for a much longer period. Also, I have lived in the same house for many months with very intelligent Christian Scientists.
And after mature consideration I regard both the Scriptures and "Science and Health" as largely made up of the errors of mortal mind. My intuitions are just as valuable to me as Mrs. Eddy's were to her.
My conscience is quite as sacred to me as hers was to her. And in being an agnostic I object to being classed as blind, stubborn, wilful, malicious and degenerate.
We should honor our Creator by cleaving to the things that seem to us to be true, and not abandon the rudder of our minds to any man or any woman, be they living or dead. Let us not be dishonest with ourselves, even to rid us of our physical diseases. As for health, I have all of it that Christian Science ever gave or can give. I have no "testimony" of healing to relate, for I have never been sick an hour. And I think I know how I have kept well. I make no secret of it. It is all very simple—nothing miraculous.
My knowledge of how to keep well is not inspired knowledge, save as all men are inspired who study and know the Laws of Nature. Health, after all, is largely a matter of habit.
ack of the reading-desks, in the "Mother Church," at Boston, are quotations from Paul and Mrs. Eddy, side by side. But the quotation from Paul, which is behind the desk of the woman reader, is not this: "Let women keep silence in the churches."
Mrs. Eddy believed the Scriptures are all true, word for word. Yet when she quoted Paul she picked the thing she wanted and avoided all that did not apply to her case. Personally, I like the plan. I do it myself. But I do not believe the Scriptures are inspired by an all-wise Deity. So far as I know, all books were written by men, and very often by faulty, human men at that. Mrs. Eddy's "Key" does not unlock anything; and she did not try to unlock any passages except the passages that seemingly had a bearing on her belief. That is, Mrs. Eddy believed things first, and then skirmished for proof. This is a very old plan. Says Shakespeare: "In religion what damned error but some somber brow will bless it and approve it with a text, hiding the grossness thereof with fair ornament." Let no one read "Science and Health" in the hope of finding in it simple and sensible statements concerning life and its duties. They are not there.
I append a few quotations, and in mentioning the page I refer to the pocket or "Oxford" edition of Nineteen Hundred Six. On page one hundred eighty-three of "Science and Health" I find, "The Scriptures inform us that sin, or error, first caused the condemnation of man to till the ground, and indicate that obedience to God will remove this necessity."
Mrs. Eddy evidently believed that work is a punishment, and that the day will come when God will remove the necessity of farming and making garden. Can a sane person reply to such lack of logic?