Article March 4, 1905 Issue

Christian Science Treatment Effective

SAMUEL GREENWOOD.

If Christian Science in its practical operation did not reform the sinner and heal the sick, it would be neither Christian nor scientific, but a mere caricature of Christianity, deserving all that its misapprehending detractors have said. The fact, however, that it does reclaim the sinner, delivering him permanently from his love of evil, should establish its Christian character, for there is no other way whereby sinners may be saved except through Christ. And its success in healing disease by a definite and specific rule, embracing the intelligent application of truth to human need, should establish its scientific character, for this has been the unattained ideal of all human curative systems. The purpose of Christian Science to save mankind physically as well as spiritually should enlist the sympathy of all good and true men, and its successful achievements should turn the needy with renewed faith toward God. Who without prophetic vision can perceive the tremendous import of these things transpiring to-day, and their broadening horizon of hope for an enslaved race?

The spiritual methods of Christian Science, so silent and invisible in their operation, so effective in visible results, remain a mystery to the materially minded. The theology that retains and maintains a material conception of Divine law, and which sees in Jesus' miracles not its fulfilment but its infringement, may deny that Christians to-day can possibly repeat their Master's works. Material therapeutics also, with matter as its center and circumference, and having no conception of spirituality as the reality of man's being, may be skeptical as to the ability of Christian Scientists to overcome disease through righteousness and prayer. But to both of these conditions Christian Science practice presents for consideration the effective healing of disease, not only without material agencies, will-power, or hypnotism, but after all these had failed.

It has been asserted that while Christian Science may be of some avail in nervous troubles it can have no real effect in more serious and organic diseases. Then what accounts for the diseases of this serious type that have succumbed to its influence, an influence that revived hope when medical fears had prostrated it? Are nerves less material than bones or muscles or brain, etc., that they are susceptible to Christian faith and prayer, while these others are not? And might not one ask, if nervous conditions are so simple of cure, why they are not treated successfully instead of being allowed to pass to Christian Science practitioners? How is it, for instance, that material methods did their best for years to relieve the writer of just such troubles, but without effect, and that thereafter Christian Science came to his rescue?

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