Christian Science Misunderstood

THEODORE D. WARREN

Newark (N. J.) Advertiser

Mr. Editor.

Christian Science healing is the direct outcome of Christian Science praying. In the text-book of this Science Mrs. Eddy says, "A mere request that God will heal the sick has no power to gain more of the divine presence than is always at hand. The beneficial effect of such prayer for the sick is on the human mind, making it act more powerfully on the body through a blind faith in God. This, however, is one belief casting out another,—a belief in the unknown casting out a belief in sickness" (Science and Health, p. 12). She further says at the opening of the first chapter of that great work, the chapter that so courageously and keenly analyzes prayer as it is generally practised and so humbly and lovingly teaches prayer as it should be: "The prayer that reclaims the sinner and heals the sick, is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him,—an unselfed love."

The Christian Scientist exercises no faith in mortal mind, the alleged product, or else dependent, of a human brain, much less can he recognize any divinity of such so-called mind; but by his understanding of the One Mind, God, he demonstrates in some degree the dominion of man, as the spiritual son of God, conferred by his Maker in Genesis, and sung by the royal psalmist of Israel in the eighth psalm, "Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet."

As in praying, so in healing; the Christian Scientist takes Jesus as his teacher, his exemplar, his way-shower. His command to his disciples, "Heal the sick," his promise, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also," these are the inspiration of the Christian Scientist in preaching "The kingdom of heaven is at hand" to a self-loving and materialistic community. And in the glowing words of this same Jesus. "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death," he finds his divine authority for going to what our clerical critic hastily calls "the insane length of claiming that there is no need of dying."

So far is Christian Science from magnifying brain power or recognizing divinity in the human mind that Mrs. Eddy says: "I find the will, or sensuous reason of the human mind, to be opposed to the divine Mind, as expressed through divine Science" (Science and Health, p. III). "The medicine of Science is divine Mind" (p. 104).

If God "has put curative properties in the earth, the minerals, and the plants," it must be because He foresaw disease and death to which they must be the antidotes. Thus we find God again represented as the author of evil, sin, sickness, and death. Over against this teaching put the words of St. James: "Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter?" and the words of Jesus: "If a kingdom be divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand." We claim that God is supremely good. How, then, could He create the disease and sin which are infinitely foreign to Him? and how could He maintain His rule over His creations if He were Himself the instigator of rebellion?

Neither Jesus nor his disciples used drugs in healing. Mrs. Eddy destroys all belief in drugs as an agency in Christian healing in a very few words: "It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus also would have recommended and employed them in his healing. The sick are more deplorably lost than the sinful, if the sick cannot rely on God for help, and the sinful can" (Science and Health, p. 143).

THEODORE D. WARREN.

In Newark (N. J.) Advertiser.

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