Article December 17, 1910 Issue

It is peculiarly characteristic of Massachusetts, so generally...

Boston Transcript

It is peculiarly characteristic of Massachusetts, so generally derided as hard-fisted, unsentimental, and ultra-practical, that here spiritual and emotional ideas take strongest root. Not ideas and practices that connote spectacular demonstrations, but those that lie close to the fundamentals of life. This fact has led to the sneer at Boston and Massachusetts as the home and favorite haunt of fanatics, and such zealots are rather pleased to be so called. The anti-slavery propagandists delighted in the term. So did the spiritualists, and we have not known much resentment of it from the devotees of the cause whose Founder passed on Saturday night. Of all these causes, Christian Science has flourished most and most amazingly. And that growth has come in a period that we are used to calling especially commercialized, narrow, and sordid. Indeed, many persons regard its success as due almost wholly to a natural revulsion or at least reaction from this overmaterialistic public spirit. That may account for its growth, but it can hardly account for its origin, which was certainly due to the genius of one woman.

What a rise and growth it has had! It is the only world religion, so far as we can now remember, that had its rise in an English-speaking country, and is the only new one that has been created for centuries. Wonderful spiritual forces must have been set at work to accomplish this marvelous result. Somewhere in it must be germs of truth. Otherwise its story would be utterly inexplicable. No other recent cause has had such tremendous territorial extent, either in this country or in the world. All these things must be conceded by those to whom Christian Science is utterly enigmatical or anathema. These cannot understand the theory of its application, but they must admit the beneficent results that often come from this treatment and they recognize the satisfaction which Mrs. Eddy had a right to feel over the triumph of her cause. Few founders of a religion have been so rewarded in beholding the tangible success of their labors. Most of these founders died in ignominy and defeat.

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