Article August 8, 1901 Issue

Dean Farrar on Christian Science

Churchman

To the Editor of the Transcript.

The utterances of Dean Farrar in Saturday's Transcript are the swellings of the tide of progress, and are welcome words to all who believe more in Christianity than sectarianism. The bigoted love of old error is, however, painfully strong still, and there are quiet preparations being made for bitter war by churches and the medical profession against the Christian Scientist. The homœopaths are now arming, forgetful of the days when their measure of truth was ignored and they persecuted. Perhaps the sectarian world is seeking to find some object on which to exercise the gathering wrath born of its own consciousness that something within the folds is wrong which is breeding consequences. Does the decay in church membership and the consequently weakened treasury so often bewailed by the modern congregation, seek to find its cause in the new and rapidly growing sect? Do the doctors feel the pinch? What if it calls itself "Christian" and is not according to evangelical views, is it Christian to attack it? What if the science is only in name and not in fact, is that a reason for an era of persecution? Do people die from so-called neglect of "proper remedies"? Surely the morgue and hospital are witnesses that there are deaths from civilized neglect, as the emaciated bodies of the starved, cry out against the humanity, the Christian (?) humanity that could have saved them, and did not. Are doctors infallible, or shall we thank God for the blessing of being killed scientifically, while we wonder at the changes of scientific view in the professional kaleidoscope.

Somebody's ox must be gored, seeing that there is such a bellow from the herd of sects. If the Christian Scientists teach humbug, then let men ask, is the church guiltless, are the denominational creeds satisfactory? Is even the Apostles' Creed so genuine and enlightening as to be just the thing for the soul of the intelligent preacher to pin faith to? Will the Athanasian creed be found attractive? Surely the old Westminster Confession or the close communion Baptist bigotry leaves something to be desired; and maybe Wesley's sermons and discipline would not go down many spiritual throats to-day without a deal of pushing. What are the Christian Scientists doing? do you answer, Not believing outside the church what the church demands? well, he or she is very blind not to see that inside the churches there are thousands upon thousands who do not believe what the churches hold, but then they subscribe, and keep on, and that makes a difference. The faiths need reconstruction.

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