Christian Science Cures
It is urged, however, that Mrs. Eddy's teachings have been demonstrated to be true by the remarkable cures they have effected. I need not question these cures. I hope all of them are genuine. I love humanity too well to wish that its ills were not cured at all rather than that they should be cured by Christian Science. But when every claim is conceded, all that will be proved is that Christian Science has cured some sick people. Of course it has. I hope the Christian Scientists will be equally generous to admit that during the past thousands of years cures have been effected also by other agencies. Mohammedanism has cured the sick; Catholic saints have cured the sick; holy places have performed cures—else why do multitudes go on pilgrimages to shrines? Patent medicines have helped the sick, otherwise the inventors and vendors of them could not have made such big fortunes; and the least tolerant Christian Scientist must admit that even physicians occasionally succeed in curing the sick. Evidently, then, Mrs. Eddy is not the only healer; which, if admitted, will prove that she has not performed any cures with her "ism" which others have not performed without it. If it be said that other cures are cures only in name, the same is said by unbelievers of Christian Science cures. One objection balances the other. Christian Science would be unique if it never failed to cure. But as it fails in some cases from one cause or another, and as it limits its practice to complaints which do not require a knowledge of surgery, and, again, as it has never accomplished what the other agencies have failed to accomplish—restoring a lost limb, for instance—it follows without the possibility of contradiction that it is at its best no more than any other human agency.
At a Sunday morning meeting in San Francisco, as the audience was leaving, a cripple in her invalid's chair was being wheeled out of the building. Stepping up to one of the ushers who seemed to possess considerable authority, I asked why the cripple had been brought to the Christian Science meeting. "To be healed, of course," was the unhesitating reply. But as she was being wheeled out in the same condition as she was in when wheeled into the meeting, would it not follow, I asked, that she was not cured? Had the occasion permitted, the Christian Science usher would have argued that one or two treatments are not always enough to effect a cure. Admitted. But if "Divine" science must have more than one chance to hit the mark, how does it differ from human science? To prove its Divine origin, Christian Science must meet the following conditions: First, it must cure diseases which all other agencies have pronounced incurable; second, it must never fail to cure; third, it must prove itself the only power that can cure. Not one of these conditions has been met by Christian Science. It has failed to cure many; it has not cured the incurables; and other agencies have cured at least as many patients as has Christian Science. In what respect, then, is Mrs. Eddy's doctrine the absolute or the only truth?
Christian Science Testimonials
Mrs. Eddy devotes one hundred pages of her Science and Health to testimonials from people who have used her "nostrum," very much as vendors of patent medicines are in the habit of doing. But while, as a rule, testimonials in patent medicine books are signed in full, those in Science and Health give only initials. Rheumatism, hernia, fibroid tumour, insanity and epilepsy, cancer and consumption, Bright's disease, and many other diseases, according to these testimonials, have been "quickly cured," often by the mere reading of Mrs. Eddy's book. But there are equally numerous witnesses to prove that these same maladies have been cured by other equally fantastic remedies. I do not feel myself under obligation, however, to take notice of these claims, for the excellent reason that I am not bound to explain alleged facts, but only real facts. Let the healers first prove that their patients had real cancer, and that Christian Science cured them permanently, and then I will consider their claims. But some one might say: "I ought to be an authority on my own case. Every doctor had given me up; I was told nothing could save me. My disease was pronounced incurable, yet I am now in the best of health through Christian Science." If a person may be misinformed about others, he may be about himself. It is the most natural thing to imagine one's self sick or cured. It is equally a matter of experience that doctors often fail to diagnose the case of a patient correctly. Their pronouncing any one incurable is not a final or infallible judgment. Before a miracle is claimed in the case of any patient it has to be shown, by expert and disinterested testimony, that the disease in question really existed, that it was really incurable, and that Christian Science really cured it. But is such testimony forthcoming? Do healers invite investigation of their cures by outsiders?
In 1898 Mrs. Eddy announced some miraculous performances. "I challenge the world to disprove," she said, "what I hereby declare! I healed malignant tubercular diphtheria and carious bones that could be dented in by the fingers. I have healed at one visit a cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord." Who made the diagnosis? How could a novice tell one disease from another? If it was a physician's report Mrs. Eddy is quoting, who was the physician? Besides, for Mrs. Eddy to accept a doctor's verdict would be to put faith in medical science, which, according to her, is no science at all. Neither does this Divine practitioner give the name and the address of her patients. Who witnessed the treatment applied to the case she describes? Who pronounced the patient cured? I hope Mrs. Eddy cured all her cancer patients; but a hope is not a proof, nor is assertion an argument. The only way to demonstrate a power is to submit to all the tests. Compare Mrs. Eddy's story of how she cured an unnamed patient with the following accomplishment by a man of real science: "A remarkable case of curvature of the spine was announced at a Philadelphia hospital. The case was that of Adele Weinberg, a young girl hunchback. The surgeon removed part of one of the lumbar vertebræ, found it to be diseased, and in its place used a section of leg bone. She is as erect as though her spine had been normal from birth." That operation took place in a hospital in Philadelphia, before nurses and assisting physicians, who may be summoned as witnesses. But Mrs. Eddy mentions no witnesses whom we may interview in connection with the cancer cure she describes.