Chapter IX: Introduction: II (6)

It remains now to ask how far we English Church people have any guidance to which we can appeal in our liturgical forms. We have to admit that the well-being of the body does not receive the amount of consideration in our Prayer-book that it did receive in more primitive days. And yet the allusions are more frequent than many imagine. At the outset of Morning and Evening Prayer we are reminded that we have met ‘to ask those things which are requisite and necessary as well for the body as the soul.’ Over and over we repeat the clause in the Lord’s Prayer--‘Give us this day our daily bread.’ In the Creed we joyfully attest our belief in the ‘resurrection of the body.’ In the Litany we pray to be delivered from ‘plague and pestilence.’ A special intercession is appointed for use ‘in the time of common plague or sickness,’ as well as the more general one for all who are ‘any ways afflicted, or distressed, in mind, body, or estate,’ with a particular remembrance of ‘those for whom our prayers are desired.’ In the Collects, which were intended primarily for use at the Eucharist, we find petitions for help in ‘our infirmities,’ for defence from ‘all adversities which may happen to the body,’ for preservation ‘both in body and soul,’ and for readiness of ‘body’ to do the Divine will. In the Office for Holy Communion we may be glad to note even clearer traces of the Scriptural and primitive conception as to the place which the physical part of our nature is entitled to hold in the religion of the Incarnation.

When we say the prayer for the whole Church, we humbly beseech God ‘to comfort and succour all those who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity.’ In the Prayer of Humble Access there are petitions, first to be met with in the earliest form of the English service (1548), which sound like an echo from the already quoted Prayer-book of Serapion, ‘that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His Body, and our souls washed through His most precious Blood.’ Even more intentionally significant are the words of administration appointed to be addressed to every communicant, ‘The Body of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life’; ‘The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.’ These references to the ‘body’ appear to have been deliberately introduced into our service. In the Latin form the celebrant had said, ‘custodiat animam meam in vitam aeternam.’[113] And as the body has its place of privilege, so also it has a share of the corresponding responsibility. In the Prayer of Oblation ‘we offer and present our souls and bodies to be a reasonable, holy, and lively sacrifice.’ Finally, among the Collects suggested to be said after the Offertory, and at other times ‘as occasion shall serve,’ the foremost place is given to two which are closely connected with the thought of bodily welfare. The first, ‘Assist us mercifully, O Lord,’ was a prayer used in medieval times for persons who had gone on a pilgrimage to seek physical as well as spiritual blessings; the second is for the sanctification and governance of ‘both our hearts and bodies,’ that we may be ‘preserved in body and soul, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.’

[113] It would seem that the fuller form, ‘corpus et animum meam,’
was used by the priest at his own communion in the Mozarabic rite;
and that a similar form was prescribed in the Cologne use of the
fourteenth century for communicating the people. (Daniel, _Codex
Liturgicus_, i. pp. 105, 147.) Otherwise the rule was as stated
above. It is interesting to note, however, that the words ‘corpus
et’ were very generally employed in administering _to the sick_ in
medieval England (see the _York Manual_, Surtees, lxiii. pp. 51, 52).

So then, in our Prayer-book, as in the older service books, the benefit of the body is closely associated with the gain which is sought for the soul. The physical effect is regarded as dependent upon the spiritual gift. As the Bishop of Birmingham has put it, ‘though in the Holy Communion the body is sanctified through the sanctification of our spirit, and transformed and endowed, in subtle and secret ways which pass our comprehension, with capacity for the life immortal; yet it is through the spirit and not directly.’[114] The blessing begins with the spirit, but it certainly does not end there.

[114] _Body of Christ_, p. 64.

* * * * *

This sketch of a great subject, imperfect as it has been, may serve to turn the thoughts of some of us to an aspect of our religious privileges which has not been very much before our minds. A friend who had been spending a good deal of time on ‘cures’ on the continent as well as in this country, wrote to me lately to say that he was beginning to think that he ought to get more assistance towards recovery from his religion than he had been getting. That is an idea which accords with the temper of the first Christians, and is certainly encouraged by a careful study of our own Prayer-book. We dare not assert that all ‘the ills that flesh is heir to’ would disappear before a quickened vitality of soul, and the mental soundness which might follow from this; but we can well believe that the tendency of true religion is all in the direction of physical health. Indeed, we may go so far as to say that there is no restorative force that we know of to compare with the influence of spiritual peace and gladness. We have amongst us those who are fully conscious that they have owed much bodily strength to prayers and to sacraments. And there are medical men who would not hesitate to give their confirmatory testimony from what they have seen in their experiences of the sick.

Sometimes we hear of small attendance at the weekly or daily Eucharist. If this is to be remedied it will be because truer views have come to prevail again of the meaning of the greatest service of the Church. We shall recover the spiritual fervour and force of primitive Christianity when we learn once more to give the Eucharist its proper place in our worship and our life. We might be helped to do this if, like the first Christians, we accustomed ourselves to look to our Communions not only for the blessing that they can bring to our souls, but for the lesser, and yet not less real, blessing which we may find in them for the sanctification and preservation of our bodies.

PRAYER AND MENTAL HEALING

BY

ARTHUR CHANDLER, D.D.

BISHOP OF BLOEMFONTEIN

PRAYER AND MENTAL HEALING

BY THE BISHOP OF BLOEMFONTEIN

This paper is concerned with Mental Healing; its object is to suggest, in a tentative way, how Mental Healing may be effected by Mental Prayer. But, in order to do this, it is necessary (at the risk of repeating what may have been written by others) to refer to certain premises leading up to the conclusion which I wish to draw.

(1) In the first place it is coming to be recognised that ‘consciousness’ must be understood in a far wider and more general sense than we have been accustomed to associate with it. Alongside of the active work of the intellect with which, e.g., we study mathematics or pursue our profession, there is a large, dreamy, half-conscious tract of mind, not sharpened to a single point, like the active intellect, but consisting in a multiplicity of mind-centres (mental ganglia, as we might call them) diffused throughout the body. We knew before that our body was a microcosm or an epitome of the world in which it was found, and now we are learning that the same is true of our minds. Primitive kinds of consciousness have been carried up with us in our ascent from lower grades of being, and survive, dormant but real, over against the intellect which is the palmary achievement of our race. This residual consciousness (the consciousness which exists outside of the rational intellect) consists largely of instincts and capacities which regulate the lives of other animals, and which were employed by man in his primitive state, but for which he has no use in his present-day existence; modes of receptivity and reaction, which were natural to him in his dreamy childhood, but which are discarded by him in the aggressive, self-assertive, wide-awake condition in which he now lives. Mr. Myers, in his ‘Human Personality,’ gives a very attractive and convincing account of this inheritance from our ‘lowly ancestors.’ But probably we have to go deeper still to account for parts of the consciousness which we thus inherit. The rooted attachment to home, and the blind tenacity with which, in the teeth of reason, men cling to life, exhibit a more primitive mode of consciousness than that of animal life. Here we will quote some very suggestive words of Professor Stewart:

‘Transcendental feeling I would explain genetically as an effect produced within consciousness by the persistence in us of that primeval condition from which we are sprung, when life was still as sound asleep as death, and there was no time yet. That we should fall for a while, now and then, from our waking, time-marking life, into the timeless slumber of this primeval life is easy to understand; for the principle solely operative in that primeval life is indeed the fundamental principle of our nature, being that “vegetative part of the soul” which made from the first, and still silently makes, the assumption on which our rational life of conduct and science rests--the assumption that life is worth living. When to the “vegetative” the “sensitive” soul is first added, the Imperative (Live thy Life) is obeyed by creatures which, experiencing only isolated feelings, and retaining no traces of them in memory, still live a timeless life, without sense of past or future, and consequently without sense of selfhood. Then, with memory, there comes, in the higher animals, some dim sense of a self dating back and prospecting forward. Time begins to be.’

This, then, is our starting point; that besides the single, supreme, rational activity, which we call intellect, there exist in us other forms of consciousness similar to those which accompany the growth of the plant or the life of the animal; and that this residual consciousness, however much we may discard or disown it, continues to live and work, and does things which the proud intellect is unable to do. On the other hand, we must not forget that these forms of feeling and instinct, of perception and reaction, which we regard as our heritage from lower grades of life, are enormously modified by their juxtaposition with a rational intellect. The unity of nature which comprehends both the intellect and them, makes itself felt; this lower form of mentality is still the mentality of a rational being; and the general position may be described by saying that there exists a decentralised consciousness, diffused through the organism, ‘irrational, but capable of sharing in reason, and of listening to it,’ as Aristotle would say, and manifesting itself in a power of receiving impressions, manipulating them, and reacting upon them, which in our present state of ignorance we describe by the convenient word ‘abnormal.’

(2) Because the residual consciousness is thus diffused throughout the body, it can exercise control over the various parts of the body, just as the central intellect exercises control over the body as a whole. As the reason can set the body in motion by commands issued through the brain and travelling down the motor nerves, so the departmental consciousness can initiate changes and disturbances in the various nerve centres with which it is associated. This, we take it, is what happens in all cases of mental healing. The phenomenon is physical as well as psychical; it consists not merely in the inhibition of the feeling of pain, but in such a modification of the nerve tissues as removes the cause of the pain. A real cure is effected, and it is effected by the action of the residual consciousness upon that particular part of the organism.

(3) This decentralised, residual consciousness can work best when the rational intellect is quiescent--when, we may say, the central office is closed. At such times man ceases for the time to be an argumentative, striving creature; the placid, vegetative, ruminative life, the life of growth and instinct, asserts itself; submerged modes of consciousness begin to stir and act, like fairies dancing when the sun has set.

And as sleep is the typically quiescent state, it will be specially in sleep, natural or induced, that these lower modes of consciousness will exhibit their activity.

(4) In order that they may act, a ‘cue’ or suggestion of some sort must be given to them. The most marked characteristic of this residual consciousness is its receptivity. It executes, but cannot originate. It can retain in the memory the whole of a long poem which it has heard, and it can solve a problem by right adjustment of its elements; but in each case the facts must be given to it in order that it may deal with them. In itself it is dreamy and desultory; if it is to work efficiently, it must be stimulated and concentrated by the transmission to it of a clear and forcible suggestion.

(5) On the other hand, although it must take its orders from the reason, it is only natural that one residual consciousness should be more _en rapport_, feel more at home, with another residual consciousness. The reason is like a parent or schoolmaster, and these consciousnesses are like children. They receive their directions from above, but are far more at home with each other, canvassing their instructions, and sometimes parodying and making fun of them, as children do with the admonitions of their elders. In matter of fact there is often something freakish and elfish about this consciousness, it reminds one of the submerged spirit of Dionysus reasserting itself in Denys l’Auxerrois as described by Mr. Pater.

(6) Now, if one residual consciousness can be brought into a relationship of definite and serious purpose with another residual consciousness, the influence thus exerted will be stronger than any which can be exerted directly by the reason itself. To revert to our former illustrations, a monitor whose own character is receptive of the master’s ideals can exert on other children an influence greater than that of the master himself.

(7) The reason of man, then, may be well able to convey clear instructions to his own residual consciousness, and send it to associate with, and work upon, some other residual consciousness. And if the instructions conveyed, and the work done, concern the curing of some ailment, a case of mental healing will be the result.

Let A be the healer and B the patient; let _a_ and _b_ represent the residual consciousness of each of them; further, let A^1 be the rational intellect of A, and B^2 the seat of B’s disease. In that case the following diagram will illustrate the process:

That is, A concentrates his intellect (A^1) on transmitting a message to his own submerged consciousness (_a_); this submerged consciousness works upon B’s submerged consciousness and stimulates it to curative action on the seat of B’s disease. Further, the best time for _a_ to thus work upon _b_ will be when A and B are both asleep. A will have concentrated the reason on the idea of helping B just before going to sleep. Mr. Hudson, in his ‘Psychic Phenomena,’ gives many illustrations of cures thus effected.

(8) But the capacity of A to exert a strong and right influence must depend on the strength of his will and the clearness of his insight; and if he is a humble man, he will recognise his own weakness and ignorance. In proportion, then, to his affection for B, he wants to bring to bear on B a stronger force and a higher wisdom than his own. A few exceptionally strong and wise people may bring help, of themselves, to their friends in the manner described in the last section; but the majority, being conscious of their own limitations, will turn elsewhere for succour, i.e. will pray.

(9) In very many cases prayer is a definite petition to God, that God will Himself act directly on our friend by bestowing a definite blessing on him, e.g. recovery from a specific ailment. But that is not quite the highest or the best kind of prayer. God loves to act through us; Christ sends out his disciples, that through them He may continue to do His gracious works. We can combine a humble reliance on God with the offer of ourselves as His instruments, if our prayer conforms to that Prayer of Quiet or Silence of which mystical writers tell us. Then, instead of ourselves acting directly on our friend, and instead of asking God to act directly upon him, we shall just concentrate our attention upon God with special intention for our friend. We shall hope that a Divine response from God will, during our sleep perhaps, enter our own subconscious self (which we have, through the concentration of our attention, made receptive of such responses) and through us work upon that of our friend. In such a case the diagram will be as follows:

We may add that this Prayer of Silence not only renders us receptive of Divine influences, which may then through us be transmitted to our friend; also it embodies the true attitude of humility in relation to God. We know not what we should pray for as we ought. We are not to dictate to God what blessing He is to send. We simply bring our friend’s evil case before Him in the very act of our own loving concentration upon Him, and offer ourselves as the agents for the transmission of that blessing, whatever it may be, which He in His wisdom may will to send. By a strong act of sympathy we identify ourselves with our friend, and trust God to provide the right remedy. ‘Have mercy upon _me_,’ said the woman in the Gospel, ‘my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.’

If we can combine this living sympathy for our friend with a humble trust in God’s power and wisdom, and further offer ourselves as the instrument through which God may act, we shall be practising the highest and purest form of intercession within our reach. And this form of intercession may be offered in a silent act of Contemplation, in which distracting thoughts are set aside, the favourable attitude of receptivity is attained, and a loving and concentrated appeal is made to the love of God. It may, perhaps, encourage us to engage in this highest form of prayer, if we recognise that it has this intercessory side. An objection is sometimes brought against the practice of Contemplation as described by spiritual writers, on the ground that it is self-centred and selfish. There is never much force in such an objection, since the contemplative who is concentrating his soul on God is thereby making himself a ladder down which Angels of Grace descend on others as well as himself; he is diffusing an atmosphere of God’s presence, with the blessings that flow from it.

When, however, Contemplation is practised with definite intercessory intention, its beneficence is clearly and unmistakably emphasised.

(10) It is well to dwell a little more on the quality of humility which should characterise all such prayers. We have no right to dictate to God what His answer shall be. We have no right to assume that it must be His will to remove all pain and suffering. Any such assumption leads logically to conclusions which those who make it might not be prepared to accept. If pain and suffering are contrary to God’s will, and God is omnipotent, it follows that there can be no such thing as pain and suffering; and as pain and suffering are located in the body, it will further be concluded that there is no such thing as a body; and here at once we have Christian Science in a nutshell.

We may try to escape from this conclusion by distinguishing an absolute and a contingent will of God, and arguing that pain, as such, is contrary, but under certain circumstances is not contrary, to the will of God. But this really abandons the whole position, since we do not know whether the case of our friend is covered by the ‘certain circumstances’ or not, and therefore are unable to dogmatise as to God’s will in the matter. No one in his senses imagines that God wills pain for the sake of pain. Everyone would agree that, if sin had not come into the world, there would be no occasion for pain. But then sin has come into the world; the only condition of man with which we are acquainted is his fallen condition; in that fallen condition sin and suffering are mingled inextricably to a degree which utterly condemns dictation or dogmatism on our part. Ignorant people like ourselves must, then, be humble in our prayers. We bring our friend’s illness before God; ‘Lord, he whom Thou lovest is sick’; often God’s love may be shown in the removal of the suffering; sometimes in the provision of grace sufficient to enable the sufferer to rejoice in his infirmities.

(11) What has been said in this paper is liable to an easy and obvious criticism. It will be said that the whole thing consists of guesses; and further, that these guesses are incapable of scientific verification. I cheerfully accept both statements, and am not particularly affected by either. All increase of knowledge has been made through guesses, and in the case of an intricate subject like that before us, we must be content to go on guessing for a long time. Further, there may be verification which would not conform to the more rigorous methods, but which would be sufficient for practical purposes. If we find that such prayer as I have described is followed by relief, either physical or spiritual, to him for whom we pray; and if this sequence occurs again and again under different conditions, the cumulative weight of such experience will justify a humble belief that God is indeed using us as vehicles of His grace and love.

(12) Finally, I should like to add a few words as to the general attitude which, it seems to me, we should adopt with regard to facts of mental healing. I have assumed that we are face to face with certain psychical facts which for the first time are winning general recognition of their authenticity. That is, we are witnessing the birth and development of a special branch of psychology. The whole inquiry into the phenomena of the subconscious, or subliminal, or subjective, or residual consciousness (whatever we choose to call it) is a psychological inquiry. It is for the psychologist to investigate the relation in which such phenomena stand to the normal working of the mind; and it is for the psychologist and physiologist together to probe the method by which subconscious mentality affects the diseased tissue, and in many cases effects a cure. The facts are becoming patent to all; the causes are a subject matter for science. Where, then, does religion come in? I answer that whilst the forces at work are psychical, and the inquiry into their mode of operation is scientific, they can be best put in motion by religion.

Some such demarcation of spheres seems to me to be essential. It would be fatal to assume that all manifestation of subconscious activity is supernatural; that all mental healing is necessarily spiritual healing. The facts postulate neither a special spiritual gift, nor a special theory of the universe (such as that of Christian Science) to account for them. They are, we repeat, psychical facts, and come under the domain of psychology.

Further, as I have suggested above, religion is not the only motive power by which they can be roused to action. A rigorous process of attention and concentration of the mind, which has been rendered quiescent by the elimination of other thoughts and ideas, seems to be the condition under which the healer acts successfully; and such a process is not confined to the sphere of religion.

But, on the other hand, we Christians possess two great qualifications in this matter. First, in the higher forms of prayer we have ready to our hand a peculiarly effective method of concentration and attention; and, secondly, through the use of this method, we can link our own action with the action of God, correcting our ignorance by the wisdom of God, and supplementing our weakness by the power of God.

* * * * *

NOTE.--In this article I have dealt with healing as exercised on the ills of another, not on one’s own ills; and the prayer associated with such healing has therefore been presented as intercessory prayer. But of course the troubles which we have in view may be our own. In such a case the method will be much the same as that sketched above; relief may be effected subconsciously through the medium of prayer. But the procedure is now much simpler. Instead of sending out our subconsciousness (the phraseology is necessarily materialistic and fearfully inadequate) to work on that of another, we merely commission it to work on the seat of our own malady. The method now becomes one of auto-suggestion, i.e. the healing suggestion is made by us to ourselves. We know the power of this process in the moral sphere; we know how, by fixing our minds on lofty and ennobling ideas, we can break the power of temptation, not by a frontal attack, but by getting round it and above it to a higher level of life and thought. This, in fact, is the main purpose and effect of meditation as ordinarily practised. The scope of meditations only have to be slightly extended in order to apply to our physical as well as our moral troubles. But, although this method of healing becomes simpler in procedure, because applied to ourselves, yet for the same success it demands still greater humility and purity of intention. If, when we pray for others, it is hard for us to believe that the prayer may be really and effectually answered in other ways than by the removal of the physical suffering, it is still harder for us to recognise this in our own case. To meet this difficulty, it will be well that prayer for our own relief should be as much as possible silent prayer. We shall concentrate our attention on God’s love and power, as revealed in Christ, just spread out our trouble before Him, and resolve to trust Him to the uttermost. The suggestion thus conveyed to our own subconscious life will be charged with God’s grace; if physical healing results, the restored health will be transformed by dedication to God’s service; if the relief takes the form of strength to endure, it will be none the less relief, lifting us above the level of self-pity into tranquil communion with Christ crucified, and may be none the less an instrument in God’s hands for the doing of His blessed will.

THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

BY

M. CARTA STURGE

THE METAPHYSICS OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

BY M. CARTA STURGE

In attempting to criticise the Metaphysics of Christian Science, as put forth in the book which claims to be the authority for its doctrine, ‘Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures,’ one is tempted to quote the famous chapter on ‘Snakes in Iceland,’ which runs ‘There are no snakes in Iceland,’ and to say at the outset that Christian Science has no Metaphysics. Since, however, it claims to explain the Universe, and to give a theory of such metaphysical subjects as Matter and Spirit, as well as of Unity and Reality, it may be well to examine its statements on these abstruse matters to see if they can justly claim to have value as Metaphysics, to search the island, as it were, before pronouncing that there are no snakes in it.

Undoubtedly Christian Science owes a good deal of its attractiveness to its teaching of a sort of popular Idealism. It was put forth at a time when a great wave of Materialism had overspread the Christian world, not owing only to discoveries in Natural Science, which seemed in the first flush of their triumph, before they had been adjusted with other fields of thought, to destroy all belief in Spirit, but owing also to the fact that Religion had been for so long established and, apparently, firmly seated upon a secure spiritual foundation, that it had been loosely taught as to its fundamental basis. So little had its relation with physical things been explained that the spiritual and physical aspects of the Universe had become, as it were, separated in thought and shut up respectively in watertight compartments. The result was that in the popular mind the two worlds, the spiritual and the physical, stood in a merely artificial relation with each other, connected, as it were, by unmeaning hooks, instead of standing in an intimate organic relation, so close that no true statement regarding the one could possibly stand in collision with the truth of the other.

In consequence of this merely artificial relation of the two in the popular mind, at the first breath of the new scientific announcements the two worlds in the minds of only too many fell apart, and the spiritual world floated away, if one may say so, to nowhere, whilst the physical, with all its limitations, its ruthless laws, its indifference to the individual, its total disregard of pain, and its insurmountable barriers, reigned alone. Materialism had triumphed with its apparently hard-and-fast solidity; whilst the ideals of Poetry, the truths hinted at by Art, the revelations of the prophet, the dreams of the young and the visions of the old, and our intuitions of unseen realities which cannot be uttered, were consigned by many, supposed to be wise, to the region of illusions, the realm of nothingness, and Man seemed indeed to be nothing more than a creature helplessly subject to circumstance, the sport of every wind, and entirely beyond the region of hope wherever physical aid failed.

It was in the midst of a state of things something like this that Christian Science came with its contrary announcement that all is Spirit, and this given forth with the energy and freshness which always accompanies the discovery of a new aspect of truth, or, as in this instance, the rediscovery of a world-old truth which had been for a time despised or forgotten. And with it came a message of hope, the assurance that we are not the creatures of mere circumstance, that we are not limited to physical life, nor altogether tied down by its limitations, that things are not as hard and fast as they seem, and that in the power of Spirit we can throw down many a barrier and rise above circumstances. Most welcome teaching, and yet to those of us accustomed to singing, on the third evening of the month, ‘With the help of my God I shall leap over the wall,’ it seems strange that it should appear quite so new! However, as before said, Materialism had darkened much of this old truth and somewhat blinded our eyes. Whether, therefore, it seems new or old to us, we can only welcome a powerful reassertion of Idealism, of the supremacy of Spirit, provided it come with good credentials, and be so stated as to appeal to the best and sanest part of ourselves, and with the breadth and depth of treatment that so wonderful a truth calls for. Unfortunately, it is here that Christian Science fails us. It is a cheap, too much ready-made Idealism that is put before us, and one that rather appeals to our less sane moments than to our more brilliantly illuminated ones.

Idealism, by reason of its very greatness, by its perception of things that lie outside our senses, by its apprehension of infinities far beyond our grasp, has many and great difficulties to encounter as soon as, leaving the inspired region of Poetry, and of prophetic vision, it tries to present itself as rational to our intellect, and as conformable with our knowledge of physical things. Had the foundress of Christian Science confined herself to the uninquiring assertions of Seership, and left the explanation of Spiritual truths (of which no one can deny that she caught some luminous glimpses) to minds equipped with the necessary knowledge and training, Christian Science would have been shorn of much of its incoherence and false teaching, and perhaps have proved itself a real ally to Christianity.

But the foundress was not content with the rôle of giving forth such insight as she may have had as a Seer. She tries to explain it, and the consequence is such a tangle of incoherent, inconsistent, confused statements, contradictory to each other, as has, perhaps, never seriously been given to the world before. And where, occasionally, the statements, at least as to their wording, are clear and unmistakable in their meaning, so far from clearing away the difficulties of Idealism, they add much to the obscurity, and leave the subject in a position likely to act in the long run in favour of Materialism rather than in the direction intended.

We will take an instance. Mrs. Eddy lays great stress on the Oneness of the Universe. Here we shall few of us quarrel with her, for Unity is the root-idea of Thought, whether scientific or philosophic, or even that of mere common-sense, since it is only by Unity that one thing can be seen in relation to another. The Unity is, however, difficult of apprehension, since it is essentially an idea--although none the less real for that--being, from the physical point of view, never seen or apprehended as a material thing. Therefore it is non-material, something spiritual or mental to be realised by insight other than that of the senses. Mrs. Eddy has this insight, and has it very strongly.

Idealism, however, is no sooner arrived at than it presents us with a very hard knot to untie, and it is here that we shall see how far Mrs. Eddy can give us any adequate metaphysical solution.

She realises, like much greater thinkers, how hard it is to understand how our material world can be contained in a spiritual idea, and that Matter and Mind are of difficult reconciliation, although, if we grant they both exist, they are so obviously related that they must be reconcilable within a Unity somehow. This reconciliation has cost much thought for thousands of years on the part of the deepest thinkers, but the easy way of solving the difficulty in the case of shallow thinkers is to do it by throwing one or other of the members in this pair of opposites away, to deny it existence, and so to attain a cheap conception of unity by pronouncing either matter or mind to be a mere illusion. The Materialist tries cancelling Mind. Mrs. Eddy throws out Matter and with it our entire physical world, not only the objects in it, but all mental conceptions in regard to it, such as the Laws of Nature, and all possible theories as to its being a manifestation of Mind. All our conceptions of its laws are errors conceived by the intellect, she teaches,[115] which is itself non-existent. In fact, the world only _is_ because we falsely think it is. We have only to unthink it, and it will disappear. Spirit is One, and therefore the many objects of the world cannot be included in it; and only Spirit is real, therefore the material world cannot be real. Such is her argument, and she cannot allow that Matter may be a manifestation of Mind or created by Mind, or have any relation with it of whatever sort. ‘Spirit and Matter no more commingle,’ she says, ‘than light or darkness,’ and she asserts that ‘Science reveals nothing in Spirit out of which to create Matter.’

[115] For proofs of my assertions regarding the teachings of _Science
and Health_, I must refer the reader to my book _The Truth and Error
of Christian Science_.

We have here attained, if we have attained it, Oneness at the expense of the Many. It is One simply by means of containing nothing, and, in place of the inspiring conception of the true thinker of the Unity as One because it includes the Many harmoniously related within itself--a Unity of infinite richness and fecundity--we have a dead, empty One, misnamed Unity because there is nothing to unite. The worship of such a Oneness, it has well been said, would be the worship of the None. Such an One would be all-exclusive instead of all-inclusive, and be gained by the annihilation of everything, instead of by the inclusion of all within Itself as the vital expression of Itself.

In yet another way Mrs. Eddy’s statements concerning Unity contradict themselves. We have seen that in her conception of Unity the whole world, as we know it, has to be evaporated, as it were, into nothingness, and it has been roundly denied that Spirit had anything to do with its creation. Yet the world has to be accounted for, and in the sequel we find that, according to ‘Science and Health,’ it _has_ been created--but by whom or what?

It has been created by the mind of Man, by his thinking power, but not, as we shall find if we read the book carefully, by that part of man’s mind that is real, but by that part of it which is constantly asserted to be unreal, to be, in fact, as much nothing as the world itself is nothing. This part of Man, which is over and over again affirmed to be nothing, is the Mortal Mind, and is endowed with the most tremendous creative powers; for by its thought, its false thought, which is again nothing, it has created for itself a world of objects, and objects connected with each other, not in a state of chaos, as one would expect in a world created by false thought, but objects connected with each other in a marvellously ordered sequence, obeying exact laws with the utmost obedience--laws so elaborate and complex in their results that it has taken Man ages to understand them even a little (although in Mrs. Eddy’s view his own creation), and yet, in their ordered complexity, so simple that they are reducible to a few heads. Such is the wonderful world created by the Mortal Mind, and with which God, as All-in-All, has nothing to do! Thus we have two Creators, two unrelated worlds, and we are landed in a Duality which is absolutely opposed to, and inconsistent with, the Oneness on which Mrs. Eddy lays so much emphasis, and which consequently disappears.

All the rest of Mrs. Eddy’s so-called metaphysical ideas, her teaching on Reality, on the nature of Man, on what constitutes truth and what error, and so on, are equally contradictory, and we are driven to the conclusion that such a hopeless confusion of contradictions is scarcely worthy of the name of Metaphysics or of serious discussion.

We welcome, as we have said, so emphatic an announcement of Idealism, and of the truth of the supremacy of Spirit, but must deeply regret that the Idealism is of so poor and thin a character, and the idea of Spirit and of the Eternal Unity so deplorably impoverished. For, indeed, thus presented, they could not long hold their own, and would soon give place again to the darkness of Materialism.

However, rather than criticise, let us welcome the recall to Idealism, to the recognition of Spirit as the supreme reality in which all physical laws find their truth, and, by a careful study and meditation upon the length and breadth and depth of these great ideas, as set forth in Christianity and all that led up to it, endeavour to do our little part towards a better understanding of these things, and thus in practice we shall indeed find that many a seeming solid barrier can be overleapt, the crooked made straight and rough places plain.

PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO. LTD., COLCHESTER
LONDON AND ETON

RELIGION AND MEDICINE.

By SAMUEL MCCOMB, M.A. (Oxon.), D.D. (Glasgow), ELWOOD WORCESTER, D.D., Ph.D., and ISIDOR H. CORIAT, M.D.

With a Preface by SOMERSET E. PENNEFATHER, M.A., D.D., Vicar of Kensington and Prebendary of St. Paul’s.

Crown 8vo. 6_s._ net.

This book sets forth in clear and non-technical language the principles, and the methods by which these principles have been applied, that underlie the notable experiment in practical Christianity known as the Emmanuel Movement. The fundamental conception of the work is that a great number of disorders, half nervous and half moral, which are widely prevalent in American and English society, can be alleviated and cured by means which are psychological and religious. The book illustrates how an alliance between the highest neurological science of our time and the Christian religion in its primitive and simplest form, as modern Biblical scholarship has disclosed it, may become a powerful weapon with which to attack the causes that lie behind the neurotic and hysterical temperament that characterises the life of to-day.

The work is written by two scholars trained in scientific theology, and a physician of high reputation as an expert in psychological medicine.

_The Church Times_ says:--‘Dr. McComb’s lecture, reported in our columns last week, has been speedily followed by the appearance of a book, in which he and two of his colleagues give a complete account of the work of healing undertaken at Emmanuel Church, Boston. This seems to justify our suggestion that the limitations accepted were designed mainly with a view to the friendly co-operation of the medical profession. Another reason for limitation is neatly expressed:--

‘“In the treatment of functional nervous disorders, we make free use of moral and psychical agencies, but we do not believe in overtaxing these valuable aids by expecting the mind to attain results which can be effected more easily through physical instrumentalities.”

‘There speaks sanctified common sense, in exact agreement with the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas that miracles are not to be multiplied _praeter necessitatem_. There is also a recognition of what is presumably true, that miraculous healing--for we prefer the old-fashioned term--is not an easy way of escape from doctors’ bills, but a process far more difficult, and involving far more expenditure of mind and will, than the use of drugs or splints. When this is understood, some prejudices will disappear. Meanwhile, the three doctors--one of medicine and two of divinity--should have a respectful hearing for their record of work done.’

THE HEALING MINISTRY OF THE CHURCH.

By Rev. SAMUEL MCCOMB, D.D.

Crown 8vo. 32 pp. sewed, 6_d._ net.

This little book is published under the direction of the Emmanuel Committee for Great Britain, and deals with the method and working of the Emmanuel Clinic when brought into contact with persons suffering from maladies which appear to be primarily mental, moral and spiritual, and only secondarily physical, but which, nevertheless, defy the utmost efforts to console or to relieve.

PSYCHIC HEALING:

An Account of the Work of the Church and Medical Union.

Crown 8vo. sewed, 6_d._ net.

No one will deny that psychic healing is a question of paramount interest at the present time. It is an everyday topic of conversation in the market place, the workshop, and in the schools. As a leader writer in one of the chief medical papers pointed out the other day, ‘spiritual or mental healing is going on all around us.’

That psychic medicine is daily becoming of more value to the community most people probably realise, but, if not properly controlled, it may lead to evils against which the public are entitled to be safeguarded.

This feeling prompted a small number of laymen to form themselves into a Committee, and this Committee formed the nucleus of the Society now known as the Church and Medical Union.

LEGENDS OF OUR LORD & THE HOLY FAMILY.

By Mrs. ARTHUR BELL.

With 32 Illustrations. Crown 8vo. price 6_s._ net.

The present volume from the pen of the well-known author of ‘The Saints in Christian Art’ is an attempt to weave into a consecutive narrative the more important of the many legends that have in the course of centuries gathered about the Gospel story, and reflect the natural yearning of believers in Christ to learn all that is possible concerning their LORD from those most closely associated with His life on earth. Founded on a great variety of sources, including the Apocryphal New Testament, the various MS. fragments of Gospels and Sayings of Christ that have from time to time been discovered, with the publications inspired by them, the book will, it is hoped, appeal alike to the serious student who delights in tracing tradition to its fountain-head and to the wider public able to recognise, without desire to analyse, the spiritual significance and poetic beauty of many of the quaint tales recited in it.

ARCHBISHOP TRENCH’S WORKS.

COPYRIGHT EDITION.

=SONNETS AND ELEGIACS.= With Portrait. Small pott 8vo. cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ net; lambskin, 2_s._ net. (_Dryden Library._)

Archbishop Trench’s poems have been well known and well loved for nearly half a century, and this little volume--which includes his principal shorter poems--should still further increase their popularity and make an acceptable gift-book.

=THE STUDY OF WORDS.= Twenty-seventh Edition. Revised and Enlarged. By A. L. MAYHEW. 1_s._ 6_d._ net.

=ENGLISH PAST AND PRESENT.= Fifteenth Edition. Fcap. 8vo. 1_s._ 6_d._ net.

=PROVERBS AND THEIR LESSONS.= Eleventh Edition. Enlarged. Fcap. 8vo. 1_s._ 6_d._ net.

=NOTES ON THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD.= New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ net.

=NOTES ON THE MIRACLES OF OUR LORD.= New and Cheaper Edition. Crown 8vo. 2_s._ net.

THE RESURRECTION NARRATIVES AND MODERN CRITICISM.

By THOMAS JAMES THORBURN, B.D., LL.D.

Demy 8vo. 6_s._ net.

In this work, which is mainly a _critique_ of Professor Schmeidel’s theory that the recorded appearances of Jesus after His Crucifixion and Death were merely subjective hallucinations on the part of the disciples and others, the writer endeavours to show that such a view is untenable from a psychological point of view, as well as inconsistent with the general tenor of the Narratives themselves.

In the Appendices he gives in addition the Extra-Canonical Versions of the Resurrection, together with a critical abstract of all the various theories which up to the present time have been proposed to explain that event, including the most recent form of the original mythical theory of Strauss.

The author hopes, and believes, that the work will be of especial use, not only to parish clergy and ministers, but also to intelligent laymen of all classes who wish to inform themselves regarding the developments of theological thought, and to be able to form some idea of the value to be attached to modern critical theories dealing with the Resurrection of Jesus.

=THE DISCIPLES.= By Mrs. HAMILTON KING. Thirteenth Edition. Elzevir 8vo. cloth, 6_s._

Small crown 8vo. cloth, 5_s._
Dryden Library Edition. Pott 8vo. cloth, 1_s._ 6_d._ net.
" " " " leather, 2_s._ net.
" " " " velvet calf, 3_s._ net.

=THE SERMON IN THE HOSPITAL= (from ‘=The Disciples=’). Fcap. 8vo. Leather, 2_s._ net. Cloth, 1_s._

Miniature Edition, leather, 1_s._ net.
Cheap Edition, sewed, 3_d._

=WITHIN HOSPITAL WALLS.= By Lady LINDSAY. Miniature Edition, leather, 1_s._ net.

=KEMPIS, THOMAS À.= =The Imitation of Christ.= Revised Translation. Elzevir 8vo. (_Parchment Library)_, vellum, 7_s._ 6_d._; parchment or cloth, 6_s._ Red Line Edition, fcap. 8vo. 2_s._ 6_d._ Cabinet Edition, sm. 8vo. 1_s._ 6_d._; cloth limp, 1_s._ Miniature Edition, 32mo., with red lines, 1_s._ 6_d._; without red lines, 1_s._ Fancy Border Edition, 1_s._ 6_d._ net.

=De Imitatione Christi.= Latin Text, Rhythmically Arranged, with Translation on Opposite Pages. Crown 8vo. 7_s._ 6_d._

=Of the Imitation of Christ.= In four Books. Edition de Luxe Fcap. 4to. With fifteenth-century initial letters, printed in red and black on Aldwych hand-made paper. Edition limited to 500 copies for England and America. Bound in velvet roan and limp vellum. Price £1. 1_s._ net.

COMPLETE WORKS.

Vol. 1. =Prayers and Meditations on the Life of Christ.= A new and Complete Translation from the original Latin. By W. DUTHOIT, D.C.L. Fcap. 8vo. With Portrait. 5_s._ net in buckram; 10_s._ 6_d._ net in limp pigskin.

Vol. 2. =Lives of the Followers of the New Devotion=: being the lives of Gerard Groote, Florentius Radewin, and their followers. Translated into English by J. P. ARTHUR. The Translation revised by the Prior of Downside. With Photogravure Frontispiece. Fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ net.

Vol. 3. =The Chronicles of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes.= Translated into English by J. P. ARTHUR. Crown 8vo. cloth, 5_s._ net.

Vol. 4. =A Meditation on the Incarnation of Christ.= Sermons on the Life and Passion of our Lord; of Hearing and Speaking Good Words. Translated by Dom VINCENT SCULLY, C.R.L. Fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ net.

Vol. 5. =Sermons to the Novices Regular.= Authorised Translation from the text of the edition of MICHAEL JOSEPH POHL, Ph.D., by Dom VINCENT SCULLY, C.R.L. Fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ net.

Vol. 6. =The Imitation of Christ.= Fcap. 8vo. 5_s._ net.

KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD., London.