Mrs. Eddy's Views on Marriage
Among the many incidental ideas which Mrs. Eddy has added to Quimbyism are her theory that the Godhead is more feminine than masculine, and her qualified disapproval of matrimony. Quimby himself had a large family and saw nothing unspiritual in marriage. In defining the real purpose of marriage Mrs. Eddy says nothing about children; "to happify existence by constant intercourse with those adapted to elevate it, is the true purpose of marriage." In her chapter on marriage she says: "The scientific morale of marriage is spiritual unity.... Proportionately as human generation ceases, the unbroken links of eternal harmonious being will be spiritually discerned."
In her chapter called "Wedlock" in Miscellaneous Writings (1897) Mrs. Eddy, after a vague and evasive discussion of the subject, squarely puts the question: "Is marriage nearer right than celibacy? Human knowledge inculcates that it is, while Science indicates that it is not." In the same chapter she further says: "Human nature has bestowed on a wife the right to become a mother; but if the wife esteems not this privilege, by mutual consent, exalted and increased affections, she may win a higher."
Mrs. Eddy apparently believes that Jesus Christ taught us to ignore family relations: "Jesus acknowledged no ties of the flesh. He said: 'Call no man your father upon the earth; for one is your father which is in heaven.' Again he asked: 'Who is my mother, and who are my brethren but they who will do the will of my father?' We have no record of his calling any man by the name of father."
Future of Christian Science
Whoever has watched the amazing growth of the Christian Science sect must feel some curiosity as to its future. Mrs. Eddy's followers are by no means the only people who are trying to meet, by suggestive treatment, nervous diseases and the many functional disorders which result from overwork, worry, and discouragement. The foremost neurologists of all countries are employing more and more this suggestive method which is the essential reality in Christian Science healing. The followers of the "New Thought" school apply this principle in their own way, and the hundreds of unaffiliated "mind curists" and "mental healers" are each applying it in ways more or less honest and legitimate.
In October, 1906, Dr. Elwood Worcester and Dr. Samuel McComb, the rector and the associate rector of the Emmanuel (Episcopal) Church of Boston, organized the Emmanuel Church Health Class, for the treatment of nervous disorders. Believing that, as Professor William James has said, "the sovereign cure for worry is religious faith," the workers at Emmanuel Church have been endeavoring to cure nervous disorders by putting the patient at peace with himself. Every patient is examined by a physician, and if the root of his disorder proves to be nervous (hysteria, alcoholism, a drug habit, insomnia, or any one of the many forms of neurasthenia) he is admitted into the Health Class for psycho-therapeutical treatment. Here he is encouraged to unburden himself of the distress or perplexity which haunts him, and is given the kind of suggestive treatment which seems best adapted to his disorder. Dr. Worcester studied psychology under Wundt, in Germany, and taught it for six years at Lehigh University. Dr. McComb studied psychology at Oxford. The records of the Emmanuel Health Class show that of the 178 cases treated between March, 1907, and November, 1907, the condition of seventy-five patients has been improved, forty-eight have not been helped at all, while in fifty-five cases the result is unknown.[15]
Mrs. Eddy's Opposition to the Mind Cure Movement
Mrs. Eddy and her followers have given a demonstration too great to be overlooked, of the fact that many ills which the sufferer believes entirely physical can be reached and eradicated by "ministering to a mind diseased," by persuading the sick man continually to suggest to himself ideas of health and hope
and happiness and usefulness, instead of brooding upon the emptiness and unanswered needs of his life or upon his failing physical powers. Mrs. Eddy's sect, more than any other one of the cults which believe in and practise this method of bettering the patient's physical condition through his mind, has forced the most hide-bound medical practitioners to take account of this old but newly applied force in therapeutics.