Chapter II: Part 2

Let me give another illustration. Wishing to prove that the material world is an illusion of the senses, Mrs. Eddy tells us that on a wet day, when there is a downpour of rain, and when mist and fog shroud land and sea, we can easily assure ourselves that our senses are not telling us the truth, that the weather is really fine, by consulting a barometer, which in the midst of cloud and rain points to clear weather. What shall we think of the mentality of a woman who appeals to a barometer to prove that matter does not exist? If Mrs. Eddy had not suddenly stopped thinking, she would have seen that if our senses betray us when they report wet weather, neither would we have any assurance that what they say about the barometer is dependable. Does she think that our senses are not trustworthy except when they refer us to the barometer?

Inconsistent thinking is often also responsible for inconsistency in conduct. The Christian Scientist, for example, objects to the physician, but patronizes the dentist. Yet dental surgery is not different from medicine, but is one of its many branches. It is by the science of medicine that the trouble in the body is located, diagnosed, and remedied by the knife, if it cannot be by medication. Besides, the wound or incision is treated medicinally, which requires medical knowledge on the part of the surgeon, just as it does on the part of the regular physician. Can a dentist practise surgery without a knowledge of the human anatomy--that is to say, of how many bones and muscles there are in the body, where the nerves are located, to what sort of treatment they will respond, and to what laws of growth and decay they are subject? Does he not treat an abscess or receding gums with medicine? And does this not require a knowledge of medicine which to Christian Scientists is nothing but "error"? Why do not these people invite a novice or their cooks or barbers to work on their teeth if a knowledge of anatomy, physiology, and medicine is not necessary to make a man a good dentist? The mere fact that Christian Scientists will not allow any one but a man with a diploma from a dental college to attend to their teeth proves conclusively that they regard a knowledge of medicine just as necessary as we do--only we admit it frankly, and they deny it foolishly. If the Christian Scientists have not progressed sufficiently to demonstrate against surgery, they should at least be grateful to us for taking care of their needs in the meantime, and help support the physical sciences until they are able to dispense with them.

In her _Science and Health_ Mrs. Eddy ridicules those who think that vegetation or flowers can cause sickness, or that there can be such a thing as a "rose cold."

"The rose," she writes, "is the smile of God," and to accuse it of producing fevers or colds is to make God the author of disease. This is strange reasoning. If the rose represents "the smile of God," what do the bugs and crawling insects on its petals represent? And whose smile are its thorns which prick x and draw blood? Further, if a rose, a material flower, can represent the "Divine" smile, why may not other equally material things have a mission in life--such as representing and imparting health? If the Deity can use the rose to reveal his smile, why may he not use herbs or minerals for curative purposes? Why may not soap and water, cleanliness, fresh air, temperance in food and drink and exercise, have as useful a purpose in the "Divine" economy of things as the rose?

On p. 488 of _Science and Health_ Mrs. Eddy writes:--Christian Science sustains with immortal proof the impossibility of any material sense, and defines these so-called senses as mortal beliefs, the testimony of which cannot be true. Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows upon them, than the fibres of a plant.

In the above, as also in innumerable other passages, the founder of Christian Science advises her readers to deny the testimony of their senses. They are urged to deny "that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed." Never mind the witness of our senses; "bones cannot break, nerves cannot feel, the nose cannot smell, and the eyes cannot see." But did she stop to think where such advice would carry us?

I smell something burning in the kitchen or in the basement; but no, the senses lie. There is nothing burning; there is nothing to burn. I feel and see smoke filling the room. I can hardly breathe; but no, the senses are "a fraud." There is no smoke in the room, and I am not choking; for has not Mrs. Eddy demonstrated with "immortal proof" that "corporeal senses defraud and lie," and that they are "the only source of evil or error" (pp. 488 and 489)? If the infant is crying in the nursery because it has fallen from its cradle, or because it has stumbled into the fire, there is no need to rush for help, because the report of our senses that the child is in danger is a lie. "Christian Science shows them [our senses] to be false" (p. 489). Fortunate it is that not many parents are consistent Christian Scientists.

It is said that Christian Science does not deal with man as he appears, but man as he is--"unborn and undying." Very well; is what Mrs. Eddy and her followers write or say about "man unborn and undying" debatable or un-debatable? If debatable, we have a right to ask the Eddyites to conform to the canons of human reason; but if Christian Science is non-debatable--that is, if it cannot be understood by such minds as we possess, then why write or talk about it at all?

Do Christian Scientists Practise what they Preach?

|Mrs. Eddy teaches that the material universe is an illusion. Do the Christian Scientists try to live up to this? I say, do they try, because to try is about all that any one can do, as it is an utter impossibility to really live up to such a belief.

Let us see if there is any difference between the way we treat our bodies and the way Mrs. Eddy's followers treat theirs. We believe the body exists, and therefore we protect it with clothing. The Christian Scientists do the same, although they should not believe such material things as flesh and bone exist. We sleep to be refreshed; so do they. We have a roof over our heads; so have they. We close our windows in the winter and build a fire; they do the same. We are growing older; so are they. Now and then we feel unwell, and apply to a helper of some kind for treatment, when we cannot cope with the trouble ourselves; the Christian Scientists do the same. We die from some cause or other; so do they. If Christian Scientists never need any treatment, why are there so many practitioners among them? How do they make a living if no one of their circle is ever taken sick? I admit that we do not take the same treatment, or go to the same helper, or call our troubles by the same _name_; but, dear me! why make such an ado over mere names?

In what respect, then, do Christian Scientists, who do not believe in the body, treat theirs differently from the way we treat ours? We have to eat to keep ourselves alive; so do they. We have to take liquids with our food; so do they. We bathe our bodies because to do so is refreshing and cleanly. Why do they bathe theirs? We need fresh air; Mrs. Eddy rode out every day for the same purpose. And does not the Eddyite, like every one else, repair his house or weed his garden? Does he not Paris Green his vegetables? Does he not screen his windows? Does he not scrub his floors? Why may he not, with equal reason, resort to certain means to protect his teeth, his eyes, or his digestive organs? If Mind is _All_, Mrs. Eddy's disciples should dispense with the use of powders and cosmetics, and their houses and gardens should be free from wear and tear, as their persons are supposed to be. Are not tree and plant, house and land, face and teeth, included in the _All_ which is _Mind?_ And do Christian Scientists use "Divine" healing also for the horse and the dog? Do they employ dressmakers to clothe their minds or their bodies? If Mind is All, why do not our trains run without engineers, or our ships sail without pilots? Are physicians the only people the Deity will not tolerate? If engineers and pilots represent Mind, why not doctors?

It is admitted by leaders in Christian Science that many among their followers insure, not only their buildings against fire, but also their lives against accident, sickness, and death. Of course, death can be caused only by sickness, accident, or old age. It follows that the Christian Scientist takes thought of accident, sickness, and old age, and guards against them precisely as non-Christian Scientists do. I know also of Christian Scientists who are in the life insurance business--that is to say, while they deny sickness and accident they argue with their clients that it is the part of wisdom, as well as a duty they owe their families, to buy insurance. Is that the way to practise what one professes?

Let us continue. Mrs. Eddy declares there is no matter, and then she proceeds to write a book. Why could not Mrs. Eddy communicate her revelation to her pupils without the help of a book? Would not that have been a real miracle? Why should Absolute Mind be dependent upon ink and type? Is not a book--its paper, its cloth, its ink, its glue and boards--as material as any drug which the chemist manufactures? If Mrs. Eddy is not able to reach the minds of her disciples without appealing to their senses of touch and sight, why condemn the doctors for using equally material means to influence their patients?

But Mrs. Eddy goes beyond the physician in her materialism. A doctor, for example, invents an instrument to render surgical operations less painful, but he does not patent his idea to protect his profits. Mrs. Eddy discovers "Divine healing" and copyrights it. Moreover, the physician is the inventor of his own instrument. Mrs. Eddy declares that her book is from God, and then proceeds to copyright what does not belong to her.

The hosts of people who proclaim Mrs. Eddy's name and bend the knee to her do not seem to reflect that to copyright God's thoughts is an attempt to copyright the Deity. A New England woman plans to secure a corner on the Divine mind for commercial purposes, else why does she charge such high prices for her book? And yet not one of her admiring followers breathes even a murmur against it. It has been said that the lady copyrighted her books and asked a big price for them, netting her nearly five hundred per cent, profit, not because she wanted the money, but to make the buyers appreciate the book. But what becomes of "Divine" science if it must count on money to make people appreciate its merits? If the Eddyites may use money to influence minds, why may not a doctor use drugs to get results?

Really the metaphysical fraternity, instead of being sufficiently advanced in "Divine" science to dispense with medical help, are often compelled to employ the services of more than one doctor. The devout follower of Mrs. Eddy, if he has a tooth to be extracted or a decayed root to be removed, or an abscess in the ear to be treated, engages, besides the services of an expert physician, also some metaphysical practitioner. Thus, while the non-Christian Scientist employs only one kind of doctor, the believer in "Divine" mind employs two. When a Christian Scientist goes to a hospital for an operation, he either takes a practitioner of his own faith with him and instals him in a room near-by to give him "Divine" treatment while the surgeon is operating on him, or he goes to the phone just before going under the knife to ask his favourite practitioner for absent treatment. Two doctors instead of one--that is how Christian Science has done away with doctors. Of course, it is true that only in serious cases do Christian Scientists call upon outside help; but, then, in cases not serious anybody can get along without expert assistance.

In _Science and Health_ (p. 463) Mrs. Eddy gives the following explanation of her seclusion from the world: "It has been said to the author: 'The world has been benefited by you, but it feels your influence without seeing you. Why do you not make yourself more widely known?' Could her friends know how little time the author has had in which to make herself outwardly known except through her laborious publications--and how much time and thought are still required to establish the stately operations of Christian Science--they would understand why she is so secluded." Is not this an admission of her limitations? And can a woman, claiming to be one with God, "unborn and undying," afford to confess that she has neither the time nor the ability to do all that is required of her?

On p. 464 of her book Mrs. Eddy advises her followers to let a surgeon give them a hypodermic injection to relieve their pain, and a few sentences after she writes: "Adulterating Christian Science makes it void. Falsity has no foundation," She advises her followers, when "Divine" science fails, to take a hypodermic for help, and then she tells them that "adulterating Christian Science makes it void," which leaves her disciples between "the devil and the deep sea."

And what if there were no hypodermics to relieve the pain which Mrs. Eddy's doctrine had failed to cope with? What if there were no surgeons to administer the drug? Under Christian Science all these material means are to be abolished, leaving the whole field to Mrs. Eddy. To whom, then, will "a Christian Scientist, seized with pain so violent that he cannot treat himself mentally," go for relief?

Mrs. Eddy knows very well that physicians and not surgeons give hypodermic injections; but she has not the courage, nor, I regret to say, the honesty, to say anything good of a physician. Is not such a mind as Mrs. Eddy's a menace?

Observe again that when a Christian Scientist is in intense pain he must not seek instant relief by an appeal to real science, but must first try Mrs. Eddy's remedy; only when that fails may he resort to a hypodermic injection. How long a trial should the sufferer of intense pain give to Mrs. Eddy's remedy is not stated; but this much is certain, he is to suffer the intense pain as long as he can bear it before trying any other remedy. Knowing very well that a hypodermic might give instant relief to a patient in intense agony, Mrs. Eddy nevertheless insists that the patient shall try her uncertain remedy first.

But what follows is really debasing: "When the belief of pain is lulled [by the hypodermic] he, the sufferer, can handle his own case mentally. Thus it is that we 'prove all things and hold fast that which is good.'" Could there be anything more hypocritical than such reasoning? After the pain has been relieved by a physician, the Christian Scientist will treat himself mentally--for what? It is very much like saying that after a starving man has been fed let him proceed to demonstrate that food is not necessary for the relief of hunger. But the real motive for demanding that mental treatment should follow the hypodermic injection is to be able to claim that the cure, after all, was not effected by the physician, but by Mrs. Eddy's remedy.

Moreover, if hypodermic injections are permitted for the relief of intense pain, why may not antiseptics be allowed for protection against germs, anæsthetics to deaden sensation, and antidotes to counteract poisons? After the antidote has killed the effects of the poison, the Christian Scientist, following Mrs. Eddy's instructions, may treat himself mentally and deny the reality of both poison and antidote.

Instead of recommending the services of a surgeon, would it not have been better for Mrs. Eddy to have advised her followers to go about equipped, not only with her _Science and Health_, but also with a pocket apparatus or instrument for giving to one's self or others hypodermic injections in cases where Christian Science failed them?

Really, when Mrs. Eddy says, "If from an injury, or from any cause, a Christian Scientist were seized with pain so violent that he could not treat himself mentally--and the Christian Scientist had failed to relieve him--the sufferer could call a surgeon, who would give him a hypodermic injection," she surrenders everything, and her metaphysics collapses like a bubble. It goes to prove that, despite her many bizarre somersaults in the air, she cannot avoid landing upon matter.

When Christian Science fails, there is still the surgeon with his "hypodermic injection." What an anti-climax! Like all metaphysicians, Mrs. Eddy emerges from the same door wherein she entered.

Again Mrs. Eddy practically overthrows the foundations of her faith when she writes: "If a dose of poison is swallowed through mistake, and the patient dies... does human belief, you ask, cause this death? Even so, and as directly as if the poison had been intentionally taken. In such cases a few persons believe the potion swallowed by the patient to be harmless; but the vast majority of mankind, though they know nothing of this particular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poisonous, for it is set down as a poison by mortal mind. Consequently the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick chamber" (pp. 177-78). With that statement it may be said that Christian Science commits suicide. Only a logic-proof mind could fail to see that to admit the helplessness of Christian Science when in the minority against "the majority of opinions," as Mrs. Eddy does in the above passage, is tantamount to saying that at present, at least, no patient can be healed by Christian Science, since "the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions in the sick chamber." Not only does the statement quoted deny to Christian Science the power to cope successfully with "the majority of opinions," but it also destroys faith in the testimonials from patients who claim to have been cured by Mrs. Eddy's discovery. So long as the four hundred millions of China, the three hundred millions of India, and the hosts of Africa, to which should be added the multitudes in Europe and America, "believe the potion swallowed to be poisonous," or the sickness complained of to be real, "for it is set down as a poison," or as sickness "by mortal mind," a handful of Eddyites representing "an infinitesimal minority" can effect no cures, seeing that "_the result is controlled by the majority of opinions_." On page 162 of her book Mrs. Eddy writes: "I have restored what is called the lost substance of lungs......Christian Science heals organic disease as surely as it does what is called functional." She also claims to have "elongated shortened limbs," etc.

But how could she perform the latter miracle against the opinion held by the majority that shortened limbs cannot be elongated, and after admitting, as she does, that in the sick chamber "the result is controlled by the majority of opinions, and not by the infinitesimal minority of opinions"? In her attempt to answer the question, why Christian Science fails to cure the patient who has accidentally swallowed a deadly drug, Mrs. Eddy strips her "discovery" of all its power to heal and makes "the majority of opinions the controlling factor." In one and the same breath she announces the supremacy of Infinite Mind, "who never endowed matter with power to disable life, or to chill harmony......since such a power without the Divine permission is inconceivable," and admits the helplessness of this "Infinite Mind" against "the majority of opinions dictated by mortal mind." And the same woman writes: "In this volume of mine there are no contradictory statements" (p. 345).

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.

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.

But how account for the presence of so many judges and lawyers among the converts of Christian Science? And how account for the judges and lawyers who are not Christian Scientists? It was not so long ago when judges condemned innocent women as witches, and sentenced them to be tortured to death. Did that make witchcraft a fact, or can it be quoted to justify the belief in witchcraft? The late Chief Justice of the United States was a Catholic. What does that prove?

Christian Science and Witchcraft

|Without wanting to give offence, I would say that Christian Science is, in many respects, the modern version of the witchcraft belief, which smote New England some three or four hundred years ago. If mental treatment can cure, according to Mrs. Eddy's admissions, it can also kill. Over her own signature Mrs. Eddy declares that her last husband was killed by poison "mentally administered." The devil possessed witches, too, were supposed to be able to injure and kill people mentally. Mrs. Eddy teaches that, "If the right mental practice can restore health, it is self-evident that mental malpractice can impair health." She also contends that a person may commit mental murder or "mental assassination." In the _Christian Science Journal_ of February, 1889, she demands that "mental assassins" be turned over to the executioner.

On May 14, 1878, Mrs. Eddy, her attorney, and some twenty witnesses, appeared at the opening of the Supreme Judicial Court in Salem and practically accused a certain Mr. Daniel Harrison Spoffard of sorcery and witchcraft. Mrs. Eddy's bill of complaint recited the injuries which Spoffard was mentally, and of course by absent treatment, inflicting upon one of Mrs. Eddy's students, a Miss Lucretia Brown, and begged the Court to restrain him from giving malicious mental treatment to said Miss Brown. Does not that suggest darkest Africa? Let me give a few lines from Mrs. Eddy's bill of complaint:--

_By the power of his mind he (Mr. Spoffard) influences and controls the minds and bodies of other persons, and uses his said power and art for the purpose of injuring the persons and property of others. Among the injuries Mr. Spoffard has communicated to Miss Brown are severe spinal pains, neuralgia, temporary suspension of mind._

Fortunately for the reputation of our courts, Judge Gray dismissed the charges against Mr. Spoffard, declaring, with a twinkle in his eye, that it was not within the jurisdiction of the courts to control Mr. Spoffard's mind. Had the Judge been of Mrs. Eddy's persuasion, the old regrettable Salem persecutions against so-called witches might have been revived. How well has it been explained by John Fiske that "one of the most primitive shapes which the relation of cause and effect takes in the savage mind is the assumed connection between disease or death and some malevolent personal agency."

Marriage and Death in Christian Science

|Let us now investigate some of the other teachings of Mrs. Eddy, which are at present more or less kept in the background, or which are presented only to those who have become adepts or advanced students of the cult. A careful perusal of Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous literature will show that she practically denies sex, marriage, birth, death, the home, the family, as well as education and morality. It seems a serious accusation to bring against any one posing as a reformer or as the founder of a religion, but the evidence warrants the charge. Has no one ever observed that Christian Science journals do not announce marriages, births, or deaths? Of course, like other people, Christian Scientists are born, marry, and die; but no official recognition of such events is permitted. There must be a reason for it. In Christian Science there is no room for sex relations and for children, even as there is no recognition of that other natural phenomenon, death. But do not Mrs. Eddy's disciples die? Is not her body buried in a cemetery, and marked by a monument raised over her remains by her admirers?

The explanation for this apparent contradiction between the profession and the practice, from the Christian Science point of view, is as follows: Every believer in Mrs. Eddy's revelation is expected to demonstrate over death as over sickness; and just as, when a practitioner fails to demonstrate over sickness, it is because of some error or belief somewhere, and not because of the insufficiency of Divine power, likewise, if a Christian Scientist dies, it is because he has not applied the new doctrine rightly, and not because the doctrine is not strong enough to prevent death. This teaching really makes of death not a beneficent economy of nature, but a crime, or a miscarriage, as it were, of Christian Science.

In the State of Michigan there is a religious sect called "the House of David." One of their doctrines is that a Christian cannot die. "But," I asked the man whom I was interviewing in Michigan, "do not the members of your sect die like other people?" His answer was that they die only when they fall from grace.

In the same way, if a Christian Scientist dies, it is because he has departed from the truth as taught by Mrs. Eddy, or because some one has killed him mentally by "malicious animal magnetism" or "mortal mind." That was how, Mrs. Eddy asserts, her husband was assassinated. If one member of a family is a Christian Scientist and the treatment he receives from a practitioner does not cure him of the complaint, the blame is liable to be thrown upon the non-Christian Science members of the family, who, by resisting the operations of "Divine" power, prevent its manifestation. It is witchcraft come back. Could anything be more inhuman than to hold an unbelieving parent responsible for the failure of Christian Science to save his child from an attack of typhus or scarlet fever after the practitioner has deprived the patient of the services of medical care and treatment? But can a "Divine" healer admit failure? Rather than confess defeat, he will accuse the nearest relatives of the patient of malpractice. I am sorry to conclude that at times Christian Science is as cowardly as it is cruel.

"Suffer it to Be So Now"

|According to Mrs. Eddy, marriage, like death, suggests materiality, and is therefore an error. The words of Jesus, that in heaven they shall be like the angels who do not marry nor are given in marriage, are quoted to prove that sex is an illusion of mortal mind. Of course, the Eddyites marry, but only for the same reason that they die--because they are not sufficiently advanced in Christian Science to demonstrate over these errors.

In the _Christian Science Sentinel_, June 16, 1906, and in the _Christian Science Journal_, July, 1906, Mrs. Eddy calls marriage "legalized lust"--this from a woman who had been three or four times married!

"Suffer it to be so now" is the text quoted by Christian Scientists to defend their inconsistency. But how long a time does the word "now" cover? Jesus, in using the word "now," must have meant his own day, which was nearly two thousand years ago. But is it still "now"? A "now" that lasts so long might just as well mean "indefinitely."

"Suffer it to be so _indefinitely_" would be the real meaning of the text as the Eddyites interpret it. Accordingly, when the Christian Science dispensation shall be in full swing, marriage, birth, children, the family, as also sickness and death, will be no more. That will be, I suppose, when it is no longer "now."

I have already quoted Mrs. Eddy's belief in regard to sex: "Gender is also a quality characteristic of mind, and not of matter." She will wink at marriages "until it is learned that generation [birth] rests on no sexual basis." I do not know what kind of reasoning led her to say: "To abolish marriage and maintain generation is possible in Christian Science." Are not such foolish as well as mischievous doctrines a menace to the community? Can a man, can a woman, believe in such absurdities without becoming unbalanced mentally sooner or later?

The New Autocracy

|Mrs. Eddy has banished all freedom of thought from her Church, as Luther and Calvin did from theirs. Christian Science is as distinctly hostile to the liberty of teaching as were the dogmatists of the Reformation.

In the _Christian Science Quarterly_ Bible Lessons definite instructions are given to read the following explanatory note before reciting the lesson-sermon:--

_Friends,--The Bible and the Christian Science Text-book are our only preachers... The canonical writings, together with the word of our text-book, corroborating and explaining the Bible texts in their spiritual import and application to all ages, past, present, and future, constitute a sermon undivorced from Truth, uncontaminated and unfettered by human hypotheses, and divinely authorized._

It is absolutely necessary to repeat this at every Sunday meeting. It will be seen from the formula imposed upon her followers that only Mrs. Eddy's voice is tolerated in Christian Science churches. But does she not also permit the reading of the Bible? Only as _she_ interprets it, no other interpretation being allowed, which makes the Bible nothing more than a medium for Mrs. Eddy's thought. Outside of her book all is contamination. _Science and Health_ and the book to which it is the key are alone Divine, everything else being "human hypotheses" which enslave and corrupt. Has the intellect of man ever been subjected to a greater pinch than that?

"He who does not believe my doctrine is sure to be damned," said Luther (Professor E.M. Hulme, _The Renaissance_, p. 363). Will Mrs. Eddy admit that there is any salvation outside her church, or that there is any other infallible guide than her own _Science and Health_? And just as both John Calvin and Martin Luther called upon the civil authorities to draw the sword against heretics, so Mrs. Eddy repeatedly summoned the State to punish "mental assassins." Where there is no freedom persecution is inevitable, since there is no other effective way to suppress freedom. It was the great Swiss reformer, Beza, who congratulated Calvin on the burning of Servetus: "To claim that heretics ought not to be punished is the same as saying that those who murder father and mother ought not to be punished, seeing that heretics are infinitely worse than they." Mrs. Eddy, nearly four hundred years later, appealed to the courts in the United States to punish one Richard Kennedy, a former disciple of hers, for _malicious animal magnetism_, and called upon the police to avenge the death of her husband by arresting the culprit who administered poison to him "mentally."

"Oh, why does not somebody kill him?" Mrs. Eddy was heard to exclaim when she imagined herself the victim of the malpractice of one of her rivals. In _Science and Health_, chap. vi, p. 38, 1881 edition, Mrs. Eddy, writing of another of her dissenting disciples with all the theological fury of the Dark Ages, calls him the "Nero of to-day... he is robbing, committing adultery, and killing," etc. And on page 2, in the same chapter, she calls Kennedy a "moral leper," to be "shunned as the most prolific cause of sickness and sin." Listen to this language of Love:--

_Behold! thou criminal mental marauder, that would blot out the sunshine of earth, that would sever friends, destroy virtue, put out truth, and murder in secret the innocent, befouling thy track with the trophies of thy guilt._

Then she predicts "a hailstorm of doom upon the guilty head" of Daniel Spoffard, another of her former students (_Science and Health_, 1878 edition).

Christian Science shows many of the symptoms of the early stages of the Protestant Reformation. "Justification by faith alone" was the slogan of Luther and his associates. Good works were not necessary at all. Salvation was a divine gift, and all that the sinner had to do was to accept it. Doing was a deadly thing.

Mrs. Eddy, like another Martin Luther, preached the doctrine of salvation and health by faith alone. "Quit trying to get well by your own efforts and trust in Divine Mind" was her ultimatum. Mrs. Eddy had no more use for sanitary measures or for self-help than the German reformers had for good works. And just as Mrs. Eddy taught that to resort to material means destroyed the patient's chances of being healed by Christian Science, the Lutherans declared that good works were prejudicial to salvation because they made man self-confident and boastful.

Another resemblance between Luther and Mrs. Eddy is to be found in their common contempt for human science. To Luther the intellect was the devil's bride. When he used stronger language he denounced reason as a whore. He had no use for the universities, and prayed to see them pulverized. More than once he boasted openly that there was not a dogma of Christianity that did not offend human reason. But what is human reason worth? What is it but, as Mrs. Eddy would reply, "mortal mind"? The founder of Christian Science showed even less respect for human intellect than did the reformers of the sixteenth century.

The words of Erasmus, the distinguished scholar of Holland, "The triumph of the Lutherans is the death of good learning," could also be said of the followers of Mrs. Eddy. The cause of culture, of intellectual achievements, of discovery, of political and physical advancement, is sure to be, and is, neglected by people who are too eager to demonstrate the wonders of metaphysics. Any movement which does not include the entire field of human knowledge is bound to be both narrow and sterile. Goethe believed that the Lutheran doctrine, which confined the world to one book, upon the meaning of which no two interpreters agreed, postponed the emancipation of the human intellect for a thousand years. Luther led the world out of the Catholic darkness into the Protestant fog. Of Mrs. Eddy it could be said that she has brought her people out of the land of Egypt into a pathless wilderness.

The Menace of Christian Science

|Imagine again what would happen to our educational system if it were to pass under the control of Mrs. Eddy's party. The majority of studies now pursued would be eliminated from the course. No Christian Scientist would see the need of knowing anything about physiology, anatomy, chemistry, biology, botany, geology, or any of the fundamental physical sciences. To teach these would be an admission of the reality of the material universe and a denial of the doctrine that all is illusion and error except "Divine" mind. But what would become of a nation reared in ignorance of the physical world and the laws which govern it? Industrially such a nation must slip to the bottom of the line, leaving the commerce of the world in the hands of those who study and master the physical sciences. The Eddyites would not care, since they are not interested in the material life, and would be glad to demonstrate that it is possible to maintain life without food, as it is possible to maintain generation without sex.

With the Christian Science dogma in force, every book out of harmony with it would be excluded from our public libraries. Think you a Christian Science librarian, if free to do as he thought best, would permit the reading of books filled with "mortal error," the cause of disease and death, and thereby postpone the coming of the kingdom of Mrs. Eddy? If to-day you can scarcely find a Christian Scientist who will read or hear anything opposed to his creed, and if at present Christian Scientists allow in their churches only two books--the Bible and the works of Mrs. Eddy--are they going to allow more than two books in our schools, libraries, and homes, should they acquire control of the government? People think that Eddyism is only a sort of drugless cure and no more; on the contrary, Eddyism, with its overemphasis on the _divine_ is the sworn foe of everything human. Huxley has well said that modern civilization rests upon physical science. "Take away her gifts, and our country's position among the civilized nations of the world is gone to-morrow. It is physical science that makes intelligence and morality stronger than brute force." How splendidly true, and how refreshing is common sense after so much nonsense!

The physical sciences are not the only studies which Christian Scientists will suppress should they come into power. History, ethics, and the humanities will also be forbidden. To a Christian Scientist the history of the centuries before Mrs. Eddy's discovery is summed up in one word--error. No Christian Scientist will teach the history of error--of illusion and "mortal mind." Even the late World War was to them only an unreality. There was, according to Mrs. Eddy's followers, no war at all, for war means disharmony, and in God's universe there is room only for harmony. It is true that young men of this faith went to war, and some of them, unfortunately, were killed in battle. Nevertheless, no Christian Scientist could be conscious of anything but harmony, and therefore no Christian Scientist logically could write of the War or of any event in history which would necessitate the recognition of evil. God himself, who is perfect harmony, did not know there was a war in Europe, said the committee on Christian Science publications in explaining the attitude of their Church on the War.

Christian Science and Morals

|Morality, too, as a scientific study, will be banished from the schools under Eddyism. In the Infinite there is no more room for sin than there is for disease, and, since man is but the image of the Infinite, he is as free from sin as he is from disease. Mrs. Eddy practically denies the possibility of sin in Christian Science.

At the age of fifty-six, on January 1, 1877, Mrs. Eddy contracted a new marriage, this time with Mr. Asa G. Eddy, giving her age as forty, as shown by her marriage licence. With a gesture Mrs. Eddy swept aside the charge that she had suppressed the truth about her age, and justified the misrepresentation on metaphysical grounds. In her _Science and Health_, pp. 245-6, she asserts that a woman could not age while believing herself to be young. Eternity, according to her, has nothing to do with chronology, and "time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood."

"Never record ages," she advises. But if it makes no difference to a Christian Scientist how old or how young she is, so far as the number of years is concerned, why did Mrs. Eddy under-state her age? In pretending to be younger than she really was did she not show her fear of advancing years? Perhaps Mrs. Eddy also believed that _truth_ as well as _time_ had lost all claims upon Christian Scientists. To change a lie into a truth, all that is necessary is to deny that "time-tables and calendars" have any meaning to the believer in eternity.

One could even commit murder and deny that a bullet or a knife could possibly deprive a man, who is _all mind_, of his life. Mrs. Eddy and her book, I suppose, will be about all the protection we shall have against the lightning, the storm, or the cold, or against hunger, ignorance, and crime. It is not difficult to imagine the kind of world this would be when stripped of everything but Mrs. Eddy's "inspired" metaphysics.

In the State of Washington the Christian Scientists, as soon as they had acquired sufficient political power to do it, abolished the law requiring the medical inspection of children in the public schools. But who will be the greatest sufferers from this foolish ordinance? The children, of course: the pupils afflicted with defective vision or throat and nose maladies will be deprived of the benefits of human knowledge and experience. Their prayer for better sight, for freer breathing and unhampered speech, will remain unheeded, upon the plea that sight, hearing, and speech are of the Mind, and that bodily obstructions cannot interfere with them. The Washington state law abolishing the physical examination of public-school children gives us an idea of what to expect under a metaphysical government.