‘A short time ago I was taken sick with fever. My mother asked for Christian Science treatment for me, and I was almost instantly cured. I have been reading “Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mrs. Eddy, and have been benefited in business and in health ever since. I am very grateful for Christian Science, and thankful to God, whence all good comes.
‘Fred. Werth, Dallas, Tex.’
‘Some time ago I was attacked by stomach and bowel trouble. A Christian Science practitioner was called, and my ailment soon left and I was again able to resume my duties. I am very thankful for the good done me and others, and praise God for speaking to us through Mrs. Eddy.
‘Tillie Werth, Dallas, Tex.’
There is nothing new in Christian Science except the colossal impudence of its pretensions. Mark Twain spoke in ignorance when he said:
‘The Christian Scientist has taken a force which has been lying idle in every member of the human race since time began.’
We have shown that it was not left to Mrs. Eddy to discover this force, and that, so far from lying idle, it has been active in temples and churches, at shrines and tombs, for thousands of years. In one thing Christian Science has probably a unique record of achievement: beyond any sect or system that we know of it has succeeded in exploiting human imbecility and turning airy nothing into solid cash.[4]
‘Every false system of philosophy, of ethics, of morals, and of religion is floated on the vast ocean of conduct, of character, and of conviction by some element of truth. This corresponds to a water-tight compartment in a vessel which is in danger of being sunk, through dishonest contracts, imperfect mechanism, ignorant seamanship, or the stress and strain of storm. But for this compartment, the ship would disappear in the gurgling green of the ocean. In the moral Order, and in all our controversies, there is this unsinkable truth. It keeps afloat all with which it is for the time united, until the balance is lost. Then the system is submerged. But the truth sails on.’[5] In the case of the system we have had under examination this truth is the power of the mind over the body and the efficacy of faith. Christian Science undoubtedly cures certain kinds of neurotic troubles, just as it may do incalculable harm by teaching that scientific medicine is not only useless but mischievous. If its followers confined themselves to merely enunciating the truth on which the flimsy superstructure is founded little could be urged against them. As we have seen, however, by a careful examination of their official records, they contradict the cardinal doctrines of the Christian Churches, and encourage a disregard for all bodily complaints that is not merely foolish in the extreme, but where the sufferings of others are concerned, distinctly brutal, and in either case often leads to the most disastrous results.
This indictment is a serious one. But then the claims of Mrs. Eddy’s supporters are so portentous that they cannot be lightly dismissed, and we must not forget that, as the Bishop of Birmingham points out in a letter printed further on in this volume, both the Church and the medical profession have played into the hands of Christian Science by ignoring the facts that Mrs. Eddy has been occupied in distorting.
However much it may have been possible in the past for the doctor and the parson in dealing with the less nervous, more easy-going type to look upon him as composed of two distinct and separate parts, body and spirit respectively, having no intimate relationship and amenable to quite different influences, such a view of men and women is to-day out of the question. To entertain it for a moment is to court failure. Mind and matter act and react upon one another, and more than this, without faith all human enterprise would be stultified. Faith plays no less important a part in medical treatment than it does in the more commonplace affairs of life. This aspect of the question cannot be better expressed than it has been recently by Professor Osler.[6]