Article March 18, 1911 Issue

As many people are inquiring what Christian Science is,...

C. L. Ramsay

Dundee (Scot.) Telegraph

As many people are inquiring what Christian Science is, and wherein it differs from faith-healing and mental suggestion, perhaps you will allow me space for a few remarks on the subject.

It is plain that most physicians of experience agree on one point at any rate; namely, that anything which can stimulate the mind of the patient to resist disease, and inspire him with confidence and hope, is a powerful aid to his recovery. The important question then is this: Where is this mental stimulus to be found? All agree that faith is a good thing, but on what foundation should it rest? In other words, on what is the patient to repose his faith? and how is the condition of mind called faith to be attained? Many might reply, "Oh, the patient must have faith in the doctor, faith in his remedies." Others would say, "Have faith in the recuperative power of nature." Is this sufficient? Others again would say, "Have faith in God, faith in prayer;" but many a sufferer has given up praying because he gets no answer to his prayer. Others again aver that through mental suggestion or hypnotism the necessary impetus can be conveyed; but many would tremble at the thought of resigning their mentality, their power of self-control, their freedom of thought to the domination of a fellow mortal. One learned professor from Oxford, writing lately in the British Medical Journal, while extolling faith as the "one great moving force which we can neither weigh in the balance nor test in the crucible," regards it as something "mysterious, indefinable, known only by its fruits." How, then, can we reach anything so vague and illusive? In the course of an article published in the same number of the journal, Dr. Clifford Albutt, professor of physics in Cambridge, writes, "To put limits to what God can do were presumption indeed;" and further on he continues, "Probably no limb, no viscus is so far a vessel of dishonor as to be wholly outside the renewals of Spirit." Here for one moment the eminent physician and Christian Science come into touch.

For more than forty years Mrs. Eddy has patiently continued to declare, through good report and ill, that to be of any real use to him in sickness or in health a man's faith must be reposed on nothing less than omnipotent Spirit, the infinite Mind or intelligence which is the only creative regenerating power of the universe. And this faith must be not a mere blind belief or vague hope; still less should it partake of the nature of passion or emotional ecstasy; it must be the result of actual spiritual understanding—a reasonable and intelligent comprehensive of the nature of God. Thus the Christian Science practitioner, understanding that God is supreme, being of "infinite power, wisdom, and goodness," as all Christian churches admit, begins by quieting his patient's fear with the comforting assurance that disease does not proceed from God, but is contrary to His nature, since evil cannot proceed from good nor find any place there. This fundamental truth that the supreme power of the universe is on the side of health and against disease inspires the patient with a courage and a confidence nothing else can give. He now has a reason for the faith that is in him, a solid foundation on which to build his hope of recovery, no less a foundation than the very nature of God Himself. I think all will agree that such a conviction, if it can be gained, will lift a man entirely above the necessity or desire to depend on drugs, dieting, mental suggestion, or any lesser agency. That such an understanding can be gained, the rapid spread of Christian Science and the ever-increasing number of well authenticated cases of healing are the evidence.

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