Article April 1, 1911 Issue

The clergyman would not find it easy to substantiate his...

Frank Bell

Chester (Pa.) Times

The clergyman would not find it easy to substantiate his assertion that the average life of Christian Scientists "is no longer and probably is a little shorter" than that of other persons. The individual experience of Christian Scientists, most of whom have been restored to health after having been given up to die by regular physicians, does not bear out what is apparently a mere assumption of our critic. Well-informed persons nowadays, as a rule, know enough about Christian Science to know that its adherents are healthier than the average run of their neighbors, and certainly nothing is more essential to long life than good health.

Our clerical critic asserts profoundly that "all disease is a germ in the blood," though of course he is only taking the word of some one else concerning a question on which not even the medical profession itself is a unit. Despite his sweeping statement, we suspect he is not possessed of unquestionable evidence that a germ is actually the cause of disease and not a mere incident thereto. Certainly until he can show whence the germ has derived power and intelligent direction to go about its deadly work, he is in no position to heap scorn upon those who do not accept the germ theory as the last word on the cause of disease.

Mrs. Eddy was not an enemy of Pasteur, Jenner, or any of the other leaders in the development of modern bacteriological speculation. Though convinced that the germ theory will go the way of countless other theories of four thousand years of medical experimentation, Christian Scientists are glad that there is at least temporary relief for the sufferings and fears of their friends and fellow-beings who are not yet prepared to see as they see and to seek health on a better and more enduring basis than the fighting of infinitestimal vegetable or animal organisms.

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