Article April 11, 1908 Issue

To that person whose knowledge and experience in...

J. V. Dittemore

Hornell (N. Y.) Times

To that person whose knowledge and experience in therapeutics have been entirely along material lines, it is probably hard to appreciate the efficacy of Christian Science treatment, which departs entirely from the realm of material medicine. We should remember, however, that probably ninety per cent of the thousands who have become advocates of Christian Science have turned to it only in sheer desperation, after exhausting all of the means known to materia medica. Would it be natural or consistent for the loving parents of a child to withhold from that child the method of healing which had been proven most efficacious in their own experience, and which had many times accomplished results for them after other methods of treatment had been proven of no avail ? . . .

I am firmly convinced that a careful, open investigation of the results of Christian Science practice will show that a greater proportion of cases are healed by its treatment than by any other known curative method. All great changes and revolutions in human thought which depart from that which is established in public favor and endorsed by a majority of the people, must of necessity, regardless of the question of merit, pass through a stage in which they are misunderstood and misrepresented and in which they seem incomprehensible to those who do not understand them. The signs of these times point unmistakably to the need of mankind for a more adequate deliverance from humanity's ills than has been afforded by established methods. This accounts for the effort on the part of several of the orthodox churches to establish a system of physical healing through suggestion and hypnotism in connection with the preaching of the gospel. . . .

The fact that Christian Scientists have not yet reached the point of doing all of the works accomplished by Jesus and his disciples is no argument against the Science. A failure to demonstrate a mathematical problem is not chargeable against the science of mathematics, but against the failure of the demonstrator to understand its science fully or apply correctly its law. Christian Science is based upon the Bible. It is primarily a system of religion, and the healing of physical disease by its method is but a part of its mission. In its work for the realization of the prayer of the ages, for God's kingdom "on earth, as it is in heaven." it may be said to have but one object, the destruction of sin, sickness, and death, — of all that is no part of true, perfect, and harmonious existence. Christian Science is based upon the fundamental proposition that God is Spirit and that He is supreme, All-in-all that Spirit is the only cause or creator, and that all effects — the universe, including man — are emanations from this one Mind, which is God, the "great First Cause" of all that exists.

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