Article June 21, 1900 Issue

An Answer to an Article on Christian Science

Irving C. Tomlinson

People and Patriot

Editor People and Patriot:—We learn from the People and Patriot that the editorial writer of another paper has used his editorial columns for an article on "Christian Science for Elephants." It is announced that two persons sought to bring relief to an ill-tempered brute in New York City park. This editorial writer then fills a column more or less with ridicule and abuse of these two who undertook to hasten the time prophesied in Holy Writ when of all God's creatures it is said, "They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain."

Granting that the incident ever happened, as described by the editor, was it worth his while to inveigh against a people who believe that the kind treatment of others, even of brutes, is a help in making them kind? Is it not a fact that the disposition, even of an animal, is affected by the good or ill treatment it receives? Does not the man who is truly mindful of his flocks have good flocks, and the man who is unmindful of his beasts have ill-favored beasts? May not this be taken as a hint of the good which might be done, even to a brute, by one who understood the Science of Mind and who treated the animals in accord with the Science of Mind? To what good purpose, then, is this scorn of a large company of intelligent and thoughtful people who are taught to treat all God's creatures, even brutes, according to their highest understanding.

Our editorial writer is mistaken in saying that this religion teaches that "there is no evil and no sin and nothing wrong in the world." Only the very careless reader or the prejudiced writer could so state. It is the purpose of this system to do away with "evil and sin and the wrong" that is in the world, even as the teacher seeks to do away with the errors and mistakes made by his pupils.

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