Not Opposed to Christian Science

BY EMMA GOULD EASTON.

It is a sweet thought to me that no one is really opposed to Christian Science. Where there is opposition, whether from a theological or a medical standpoint, investigation always shows that it has arisen from a mistaken report, or from the action of some one who has taken the name without the nature of Christian Science, and whose conduct would be disapproved of by Scientists themselves.

The early Christians were not tortured and put to death for what they did, but for what the people with whom they were surrounded thought they did. They said, "these Christians would like to burn our cities; they are a danger to the community. They sacrifice their children alive to propitiate their gods." This was the direct opposite of the truth, but one repeated it to another, till it was generally believed and accepted as the truth. The fundamental trouble, then as now, was lack of fair-minded investigation.

Those who object from a medical standpoint to what they believe to be Christian Science say it is a menace to the community because Scientists refuse help themselves in time of sickness, and prevent others from seeking help. What are the facts? It is now well known that Scientists obey the law as regards vaccination and the reporting of so-called contagious diseases. As for nursing, when a person, who is being cared for by a nurse as well as physician, decides to put himself under the care of a Scientist, he is not required to suffer inconvenience from lack of nursing while the demonstration is being made, though in most cases, the Scientist in charge would think it wise to substiture a nurse who was a Christian Scientist in addition to her other qualifications. This is in order that the patient may have Science read and explained to him, and at the same time be cared for by one in whose thought health rather than sickness is uppermost.

The difference, then, between a patient under medical treatment and one under Christian Science is not the difference of one who is law-abiding and one who is not, or of one who is properly cared for and one who is not, but of one who is looking to drugs for healing and one who looks to the fulfilling of the promise in Jeremiah: "I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord."

The charge that Christian Science is forced on people would be too absurd to answer were it not that many of the objections seem to be based on that supposition. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred the practitioner has never seen the patient till he comes to his office and asks for treatment, the patient in most cases having heard of some good work done by the practitioner.

The theological objections are even more groundless, for the theology of Christian Science is based on the Bible and the teachings of the Master, and that platform is (or should be) a broad one on which all Christians can meet in friendly greeting.

When one thinks of the Leader of the Cause the very word objection is objectionable, and not to be thought of, for any one who sees in her any other than a self-sacrificing, loving, and lovable Christian woman, sees what comes wholly from false report and misconception. To those who feel that they owe their happiness and even their lives to her book, Science and Health, she is a thousand times more beautiful. I have a cousin, not a Christian Scientist, who has known her from girlhood, he having been born and having lived his long life in the vicinity of her birth-place and present home, who said of her a while ago, "She has only fulfilled the promise of her youth in taking the stand she has before the world," referring to the high degree of spirituality manifested by her from her earliest days. She was his father's pupil, and "a favorite one, too, intellectually," he wrote me recently.

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