Editorial January 5, 1899 Issue

English Press Comment

Editor

Since we last wrote upon the Harold Frederic case we have received from London a great stack of press clippings, covering, we suppose, what every newspaper of any consequence in the British Islands had to say of this case. We have run over these various publications and gathered the general drift of what they contain. Many of them publish only the facts relating to the coroner's inquiry. Many others contain editorial comment upon the case and upon Christian Science in general, while still others publish communications from private citizens. The major part of the editorial comment is adverse to Christian Science and its adherents, as well as to everything pertaining to it. Much of what was said was bitter, unreasoning, and of course utterly unjust. Based, as were these comments, wholly upon prejudice and misapprehension growing out of entire ignorance of what Christian Science is, this was to be expected. That which is last understood is usually the most severely denounced. It seems to be the habit of a part of our modern press and pulpit to assume in advance that the thing which is not conventional and well-understood is dangerous, and it becomes a public duty to denounce it—especially if it relate to religion or healing disease—as a fad, an imposture, a humbug, a fraud, etc. If it bases its claims upon any religious premise bringing it in conflict with established religious views and conditions, or if it in any sense runs counter to the "traditions of the elders," then truly is it a blasphemous pretender, and its voteries must, by every consideration of religious respectability, be stigmatized as silly, ignorant, weak-minded, superstitious, and altogether unworthy of fair treatment or decent consideration. This is indeed the exact tone of some of the editorials referred to.

Yet some of these are less notable for their severe strictures, than for their arrogant assumptions. One might judge from the supercilious view-point from which the editors write that they were quite competent to pass final judgment upon all the teachings of Christian Science, upon the question of the mental, moral, and spiritual status of all Christian Scientists, determine without personal inspection or inquisition the question of their sanity, and pronounce judgment, final, conclusive, and entirely satisfactory to themselves, that all Christian Scientists are insane, or so nearly so that they are fit subjects for asylums for the weak-minded or idiots. Indeed, we might go further and say, that we have scarcely ever witnessed a more striking attempt of mortals to arrogate to themselves the prerogative which is usually admitted to belong solely to the Supreme Wisdom, than the superlatively egotistical, arbitrary, and self-satisfied manner in which these editorial gentlemen essay to wipe Christian Science and its followers off the face of the earth. If their power were indeed equal to their assumptions, and their judgment upon the subject operative and final, then we should be compelled to admit their supremacy of wisdom, acknowledge them as almighty, and able to say that sickness can be healed only by drugs and medicines.

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