Article August 1, 1908 Issue

The Christian Scientist does not, as a rule, undervalue...

Albert E. Miller

Philadelphia (Pa.) North American

The Christian Scientist does not, as a rule, undervalue the service which the intelligent and self-sacrificing physician renders to his fellow-man, therefore he can read the report of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell's remarks on Christian Science, in your recent issue, with a well-defined sense of amused forbearance. The Christian Scientist is generally very deeply sensible of the credit due to the honest physician who works to lessen human suffering. At the same time he is keenly alive to the limitations which confront the physician, for is not his entrance into Christian Science usually brought about by the verdict of materia medica—that nothing more can be done for him?

One cannot deal lightly, and at the same time intelligently, with the great following which Mrs. Eddy has in the Christian Science movement, if it is remembered that these people have been largely recruited from the ranks of the hopelessly sick. The subject cannot be dismissed with the explanation or suggestion that these cures are the product of hypnotism. Our Saviour was the greatest physician of all time. Was he a hypnotist, or was he endued with power from on high? Can we not accept his bidding to follow in his steps and partake in some degree of the divine power which enabled him to redeem and heal and save?

Subject Christian Science to the test which schools of medicine use in determining the value of a remedy. Does it average as well as the drugs whose potency is determined on the basis of a percentum of cures? Is the death-rate among Christian Scientists as large as among those who drug and dose? Notwithstanding the fact that Christian Science is recruited largely from the ranks of so-called incurables, it maintains a percentage of decease among its advocates which insurance companies, with their carefully selected "risks," would be glad to show.

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