We publish to-day [July 10] a letter in defense of Christian Science...

Scottish Chronicle

We publish to-day [July 10] a letter in defense of Christian Science, written in answer to certain strictures which appeared in our columns a couple of weeks ago. No apology is needed for the publication of this letter. Christian Science ... is not to be killed or scotched either by a conspiracy of silence or jeers and sneers and cheap abuse. It has gained the ear and the heart of large numbers of devout and reverent-minded Christian people, who have seemed to find in it something which other organized forms of Christianity have failed to give them. What is that something? we ask. Is it not just a profound, personal, practical belief in the solemn truth that "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," and that the healing offices of the Holy Spirit concern the body as well as the soul of man? Has the Church been sufficiently clear and explicit in the recognition of this vital fact, and has she been brave enough and trustful enough at all times to stir up the wonderful gifts of healing that are latent in the ministry of prayer? We fear the answer is in the negative: hence Christian Science, and all the excesses which schism in every form entails.

[The letter referred to above was written by Miss E. M. Ramsay, of the Publication Committee, and is in part as follows.—Editor Sentinel.]

It is with confidence that I ask you to accord me space to reply to some of the statements about Christian Science made at the Pan-Anglican Congress, as recorded in the Scottish Chronicle of June 26. All, or nearly all, of those who took part in the discussion at the Kensington Town Hall admitted that cures are effected by Christian Science. This, indeed, is the conclusion now reached by the public at large. A few years ago it was vehemently denied that Christian Science effects cures; later, the healing was generally admitted as efficacious in the case of certain hysterical and functional disorders; now our critic goes farther than this, and (according to the report of her address given by the Morning Post of June 18) admits the cure of "real, organic disease," but one and all deny that Mrs. Eddy's explanation of the method employed is the right one. It is natural enough that agnostics, and others who do not accept the Bible narrative as true, should ascribe the cures of Christian Science to the action of the human mind; but does it not seem strange that Christians should be so loth to admit the healing efficacy of prayer, or to believe that God is still, as He was of old, the healer both of disease and sin? This critic ascribes the healing of Christian Science to certain psychological laws which she says the Christian Scientists are unconsciously using, and tells us that the body responds to emotional states, whether truth or error lies behind them....

Far from being ignorant of the methods of the human mind, Mrs. Eddy devotes much space in her books to the consideration of this important subject, and in passing I may point out that she had attained to the conclusion that the human mind controls the human body long before Professor James or Mr. Myers arrived at the same conclusion from a different starting-point of thought. Mrs. Eddy tells us that it was from this very discovery that her attention was directed to the line of thought which eventually led her to the discovery of Christian Science. Mrs. Eddy, however, does not regard the human mind as a healing agent; she points out that the thoughts of mortals are as inharmonious and unsatisfactory as their bodies; that a mortal controlled by nothing higher than the human will and intelligence, so called, is indeed a rudderless boat, driven of wind and wave.

On page III of Science and Health 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." This, surely, is Bible teaching. The apostle Paul wrote, "The carnal mind is enmity against God." and "The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." Mrs. Eddy shows us that the human mind and body need to be controlled by something far higher than themselves; that man cannot be harmonious unless governed by God. She points out that this is the teaching of the gospel; that as we learn how to be governed by God we will gradually rise above sin, sorrow, and illness, and be able to do the "greater works" of which our Lord spoke....

To return again to our critic's address. It is hard to believe that she is in earnest when she declares that Christian Science is "absolutely antagonistic to moral growth." We know of cases where man and women have been lifted by this practical Christian teaching from the lowest depths of degradation and vice; our periodicals contain numbers of well-authenticated cases of healing from drink, drug, and other bad habits. In all her works Mrs. Eddy inculcates the highest ethical standard of living, nothing less than the standard of the Sermon on the Mount.

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