Article December 9, 1911 Issue

While appreciating the reverend gentleman's commendation...

John Ashcroft

St. Louis (Mo.) Globe-Democrat

While appreciating the reverend gentleman's commendation of that which he can approve in Christian Science, we must enter a protest against being held up to the world as a stumbling-block to human progress. As to how that progress is best achieved there is, and will continue to be, a wide divergence of opinion. Is it not taking a great deal for granted to assume that "preventive medicine," and what our critic terms "real science," alone are efficacious along these lines, when our cemeteries are being filled with those who have succumbed to diseases our forefathers never heard of? Is there less disease in the world today, in spite of all that has been done to reduce it by medical research? Is it not a question whether the more healthful condition of the Canal Zone is not the result of intelligent engineering and sanitation rather than of "preventive medicine"? and is not the pollution of our streams and the adulteration of our food principally attributable to human selfishness and greed?

Christian Scientists are as appreciative as their neighbors of the efforts being made for their protection along these lines. Why should we be thought desirous of abolishing, or evading, reasonable restrictions against the spreading of conditions believed to be contagious by those around us? Christian Science insists upon obedience to the rule of doing unto others as we would have them do unto us. Our attitude toward vaccination is that of obedience to law where law demands this; though we have only to note the wide difference of opinion among medical men as to its value to realize that we are not alone in thinking it unnecessary. To say that Christian Science is a menace to human life is utterly to disregard the fact that the majority of its adherents are people who had exhausted medical skill before availing themselves of its ministrations. If Christian Science were the unreasonable thing its critics believe it to be, it would have disappeared long ago, and would not command, as it does, an ever-increasing consideration and respect.

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