Article August 5, 1911 Issue

In a recent issue appears a report of a paper entitled...

Eugene R. Cox

Port Jervis (N. Y.) Gazette

In a recent issue appears a report of a paper entitled "Christian Science vs. Medical Science," which indicates that the author did not have a very accurate knowledge of Christian Science. A Scientist would never so entitle a paper, because Christian Scientists are not against physicians, nor do they willingly enter into controversies or make comparisons. We recognize the earnest efforts of conscientious physicians to alleviate pain and to help mankind, and would do nothing to impede them in such work. When the statement is made, however, that lives are lost because Christian Science is employed instead of doctors, it is pertinent to ask what doctor can say that any given remedy will produce the same results in all cases, or what school of medicine would undertake to cure any certain disease at all times. In other words, were medical science an exact science and uniformly successful, there would be no turning to Christian Science except as a religion.

On the other hand, it is safe to assume that most of the sufferers who turn to Christian Science do so only after having exhausted the resources of materia medica. It is a sad fact that people are willing to turn to God for healing only after becoming hopeless of help through material means. Christian Scientists are content to be known by their works rather than words, and large congregations of happy, healthy, and contented people, in a chain of twelve hundred churches encircling the globe, testify weekly to benefits received through Christian Science. But few will be found to dispute the statement that it is better to heal an invalid and make him self-supporting than to bestow hospitals and dispensaries upon him.

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WILLIAM B. JOHNSON, C.S.D