Editor of The Macon Telegraph.

In a comparatively recent issue of the Telegraph you have an editorial on "absent treatment" in which you quote from the Philadelphia Record to the effect that "absent treatment is an invention of Christian Science," and that it may be used to injure as well as benefit, "since it can work in silence as well as at a distance."

The recognition that good thoughts, the prayer of faith and love, bless and heal both those who pray and those who are prayed for, seems to have been as ancient as God's revelation of Himself to man, and man's first glimpses of God as a good Mind or as a beneficent Spirit. As early as God was even vaguely apprehended as infinite Intelligence, omniscient Good, or as omnipresent Spirit instead of a material, corporeal, finite object or person, it inevitably followed that the answer of prayer would depend upon a right understanding of God and a right mental or spiritual attitude toward His ethical nature and character, and not upon the physical presence or absence of the object of one's prayer. When "Abraham prayed unto God: and God healed Abimelech, and his wife, and his maidservants;" and when "Moses cried unto the Lord, saying, Heal her now, O God, I beseech thee," their prayers were made to a God who was recognized as being able to hear and answer prayer independently of the physical locality of person praying or the person prayed for.

Jesus, who made the healing of disease a significant part of his ministry, healed by absent treatment as well as present treatment, as God, the infinite Spirit or omniscient Mind, in whose name and by whose power, wisdom, and love he did these mighty works, is not limited by any material law or by any human sense of space or locality.

The belief that an evil mind or spirit has power to deceive, to pervert, and to cause sin and suffering, is as ancient as the ancient of days. It tempted Adam and Eve to seek to know evil as well as God, Good, when their whole duty was to know and live the Good and only the Good; and so the loquacious serpent practised in Eden "the black art" to "evil mental suggestion." Job recognized the injury of an evil desire expressed in a wrong word when he said, "neither have I suffered my mouth to sin by wishing a curse to his soul." The Psalmist also recognized the evil of wrong thoughts when he said, "Every day they wrest my words; and their thoughts are against me for evil," which is the counterfeit of God's way: "He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions." Jesus felt the thoughts of those who opposed and hated him as well as those who sought his healing and redemptive love, and he sometimes failed to do many wonderful works on account of the unbelief or wrong thoughts of others.

In Christian Science, the healing work is done both by present and absent treatment; the present treatment being the prayer of faith and understanding that is made in the presence of the person healed, and the absent treatment being the prayer that is made for one who is not physically present at the time he is prayed for and healed. In fact, Christian Scientists recognize that their problem is to be present in spirit and in truth with God,—omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient Good, Mind, Spirit, Life, Truth, Love, who forgiveth all our iniquities and who healeth all diseases.

Christian Science does not recognize the human, carnal, or mortal mind as a healing agent; and it has nothing in common with any form of hypnotism, mesmerism, or human will power. One of the fundamental postulates of Christian Science is that the carnal or the mortal mind makes sick, and that there is and can be no genuine mental healing except through the understanding and the reflection of the divine Mind, or the spiritual Mind of love, peace, goodness, purity, and harmony that was in Christ Jesus.

In fact, the problem of Christian Science is to overcome, in the Christ-way the carnal or mortal mind and all its beliefs, matter, sin, disease, and death; and Christian Scientists, to the degree that they carry out the spirit and letter of their Science, apply the Golden Rule to their thoughts as well as to their deeds. They, therefore, pray for others and think of others as they would have others pray for and think of them, and they never enter into the sacred precincts of another's mentality uninvited, and only then to bless, to heal, to comfort, to make better and more Christly.

J. R. Mosley.

P. S. I also find in a recent issue of the Telegraph a news article on Christian Science and its risks to life insurance companies. In answer to the article, I quote the following from the Christian Science Sentinel of June 27, 1901, which was copied from the Chicago Daily News:—

Owing to a report that certain life insurance companies are discussing the advisability of discriminating against Christian Scientists, the Chicago Daily News recently interviewed the local insurance men as to their personal views on the question. We make the following extracts from the published report of the investigation.

J. W. Jackson, general manager of the Home Life Insurance company, said:—

"This company has taken no steps in regard to the question. We proceed on the theory that self-preservation is the first and most powerful law of nature, and we believe that if a man has the sense to get his life insured he certainly has enough sense to take care of his life. It is a self-evident proposition that people generally have such an interest in their own lives as will induce them to adopt the most effective measures for their own preservation, and I think the life insurance business may be safely conducted on that theory."

J. D. James, general agent of the Prudential Insurance Company, said:—

"I am not a Christian Scientist, but I have been brought up against so many physical demonstrations of its workings in the cases of relatives and personal friends that I have the highest respect for the belief, and I will say that I will write a Christian Scientist every time I get a chance. Instead of being bad risks, they are good risks, if for no other reason than that their habits are correct. I have never seen a follower of the belief who had any vicious habits. I have never seen one who used tobacco or liquor. Of course, the life insurance companies will consider this question purely as one of business. The objection to writing such persons is based on the assumption that by refusing medical aid they hazard their chances of living out the natural span of life, and that the death rate is greater among them than among those who use medicine. The result of my own observation is precisely the contrary. Some of my relatives and several of my friends who have been given up to die by the doctors—some of them two years ago—are to-day sound and well as the result of Christian Science treatment. I have seen the changes in them myself, and I tell you it was marvelous."—The Macon (Ga.) Telegraph.