Get-Well-Quick
Christian Science, instead of being either scientific or Christian, comes very near being, and in fact is, a sort of get-well-quick system, suggestive of the get-rich-quick scheme of the speculating fraternity. The gambler does not have to learn a trade or to build up a business in order to secure a footing in the commercial world, or to establish a reputation for honesty and efficiency. He does not depend upon these things for a living, since the throw of a dice, the colour of a card, or a lucky bet may bring to him in a few minutes more than patient work can offer in years. The Christian Science practitioner likewise does not have to study the human body, the properties of drugs, the nature of anæsthetics or of antiseptics, the germ theory of disease, the effect of diet and climate upon the human organism, the causes of epidemics, the means of control of contagious maladies—nothing at all of this. A few lessons in metaphysics, a copy of Mrs. Eddy's book, and a number of texts on the tip of his tongue, and he may begin practising and collecting fees from patients.
Should a call come to the Christian Science healer in the middle of a cold, wintry night, he need not even rise out of bed, much less walk or ride through the storm to see and examine his patient; and if he should fall asleep while giving absent treatment, who would be the wiser for it?
There is yet another close resemblance between the get-rich-quick and the get-well-quick systems. What makes gambling attractive is the wealth there is in the world. If labour did not create wealth, there would be nothing to gamble with or to gamble for. The gambler is a parasite. He thrives on the labour of others. In the same way, the get-well-quick practitioner profits from the conquests of material science. If the Eddyites really desired to give a demonstration of their "science," they should go to those Asiatic countries where sanitary measures are unknown where there are no facilities for the proper ventilation of dwellings or for personal cleanliness; where the waters are impure, the streets are foul, the food insufficient, the climate merciless; where modern hygienic precautions are unknown; where the cholera, the black death, or some other plague works unhindered, and where there are no physicians to be sent for at the last hour. Let them, I say, work in such an environment to show what Christian Science can do. But to operate in Europe and America—where science, like a watch dog, is guarding the health of the people, inventing a thousand devices for the comfort and security of life, hurrying to the aid of the injured almost with the alacrity of thought, building hospitals equipped with all the weapons which disease dreads, and training men and women to march at any moment in full phalanx and armed to the teeth against the first plague germ that lands on our shores from foreign lands—is nothing to boast of. Indeed, it is the progress of the physical sciences which has made the Christian Scientist's profession profitable. "Divine healers" eat of the golden fruits of the tree of science, and then turn round and stone the tree.
Christian Science Fashionable
How, then, explain the remarkable growth of Christian Science? But the imposing edifices, the prosperous looking disciples, the number of automobiles in front of their churches, prove only that Christian Science is fashionable—that is all. The question we are discussing is not Is Christian Science fashionable, but Is it true? Does the rapid growth and wealth of Mohammedanism, for instance, with its Alhambra and Alcazar, its illustrious and extensive conquests, prove its Divine origin? Does the progress of Mormonism, which reared a great city as if by magic in the Western wilderness, prove Mormonism to be of God? The Catholic Church at one time owned everything in Europe and ruled every one. To her belonged all the wealth, the culture, the art, and the power of Christendom. Yet Christian Scientists do not consider the Catholic Church Divine. Why should the rapid spread of one creed surprise us any more than that of another?
Moreover, it takes less courage to follow the crowd than to resist it. The crowd picks up the weak and carries them along. Was it not Horace Walpole who said, "The greater the imposition the greater the crowd"? What Matthew Arnold said of the multitude in England is true also of the American multitude: "Probably in no country is the multitude more unintelligent, more narrow-minded, and more passionate than in this. In no country is so much nonsense so firmly believed." Alas, that is true of the multitude in every country.
Again, the faith habit is an older heredity, exerting upon us the accumulated force of thousands of years, while the inquiry habit is too recent an acquisition to have much force upon the generality of peoples. That is another explanation of the greater popularity of dogma, which requires only belief, and the comparative unpopularity of a movement which demands individual thinking. "Superstition," as Goethe says, "is so intimately and anciently associated with man that it is one of the hardest things to get rid of." The only progress most people are capable of is to part with one superstition for another. The Pope is given up for Mrs. Eddy, but the idea of an infallible teacher to tell us what to believe is not outgrown. The keys of heaven and hell placed in the hands of the Vicar of Christ provoke scepticism in a Christian Scientist, but he accepts without the shadow of a doubt the key to the Scriptures delivered to Mrs. Eddy.