Article September 24, 1910 Issue

In reply to a recent article in which Christian Scientists...

George S. Powell

Asheville (N. C.) Citizen

In reply to a recent article in which Christian Scientists are criticized in connection with arguments made for the establishment of a national department of health, permit me to say that Christian Scientists are working just as intelligently and effectively to prevent and cure disease as any other class of people, and that this statement is provable.

While it is true that Christian Scientists employ metaphysics in the treatment of disease, in other words prayer, they are as a rule law-abiding people, believing in cleanliness, mental and physical, and conforming to sanitary rules and regulations just as other good citizens do. It is true that patients sometimes die under Christian Science treatment, because of a lack of spiritual understanding and application of the truth that there is no power apart from God, and that this power is good only. It is also true that one hundred and forty thousand patients die each day on the globe from disease under other systems of treatment; and until a system of therapeutics is developed that will cure these rapidly increasing diseases, people will exercise their rights in seeking the system they prefer, whether it be prayer or drugs, and it may safely be stated that as a rule people are capable of making this choice for themselves.

It has been truly said that history teaches nothing more clearly than that a state-bulwarked class becomes intolerant of advanced thinkers within as well as without its own ranks, and every effort to build up such a class is a blow to scientific advance and intellectual progress. It is also an historical fact that orthodoxy and conservatism have opposed every discovery and movement that has been made for the good of mankind. Since the days of the Man of Galilee no person has met with so great opposition from established schools as did Mrs. Eddy, when she wrote that "there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation" (Science and Health, p. 468), and for more than a third of a century, in the face of the most bitter opposition, she has courageously held to this truth, knowing that because it is the truth it must some time be acknowledged.

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