Article June 8, 1912 Issue

Your note on the Christian Science publishing house in...

Frederick Dixon—London.

Truth

Your note on the Christian Science publishing house in the current number of Truth should be interesting to those who are capable of understanding what it means. For years Christian Science has been growing under the eyes of people in this country, but these eyes seem to have been most securely closed. As long as a large section of the public is content to take its information from impertinent little articles in religious papers, this is likely to be the case, though it cannot be said that the great papers have always been more enlightening on the subject. May I give you a specimen of the sort of nonsense which is industriously circulated through the papers, and which people are taught to believe represents the Christian Science movement? For some time past certain people in Switzerland have been imprisoned for practising medicine irregularly. These people are what are known as nature healers—that is to say, they employ various drugs and means of manipulation which are far nearer to orthodox medical practice than to Christian Science. Into the bargain of this, there have been certain other questions connected with the prosecutions which it would be impossible to go into here. Of course, none of this has anything to do with Christian Science; on the contrary, Christian Science healing is covered, in certain instances at all events, specifically by the Swiss law. Yet, one after another, the cases of these people have been produced in the English press as prosecutions of Christian Scientists.

Take, again, another case which has recently gone the round of the papers. The Christian Scientists, wishing to help the prisoners in the state prison at Trenton, New Jersey, obtained permission to hold a Sunday service there. The prisoners are, of course, not bound to attend it, but some ninety-eight of them immediately took advantage of the offer, and though they had previously not attended services, elected to attend the Christian Science service. This is at once copied into the English papers, though, mirabile dictu, it changes its appearance like a chameleon, and the readers of these papers are informed that ninety-eight of the convicts in Trenton prison are Christian Scientists. Is it any wonder that the world should be under some misapprehension as to what Christian Science is doing?

I am sending you herewith a copy of the Graphic Arts, an art publication in America, which has nothing to do with Christian Science, but in which a series of pictures of the Christian Science publishing house is contained. You will see from it that what you have said in your paragraph is, if anything, very short of the truth. The fact is, Christian Scientists work very quietly, but they work none the less surely.

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