Article September 21, 1912 Issue

The tenor of our critic's remarks would indicate that in...

George Shaw Cook

Quincy (Ill.) Whig

The tenor of our critic's remarks would indicate that in his opinion Christian Science is espoused only by people of weak or unsound mind, or else that Christian Science reduces its adherents to this condition. He admits that thousands of people have gotten great good out of Mrs. Eddy's book, but speaks of the "credulity of people whose minds have not undergone the discipline which enables them to discriminate in matters religious." As Christian Science is a religion of works, the only discipline which would seem to be necessary to enable one to discern its truth is that which leads to an openness of mind, an unprejudiced attitude of thought, and this mental quality is one which we find in both the learned and the unlettered, the intellectual and the simple-minded. The adherents of Christian Science, although representing all sorts and conditions of men, are drawn very largely from the older religious bodies, and we must assume that had they found in these religions all that Christian Science has to offer, they would not have left them. So far from lacking the power to discriminate, they on the contrary represent a very discriminating class of thinkers, who demand a religion which shall fulfil the promises of Jesus here and now, which shall heal the sick as well as reform the sinner. Had the older churches practised the vital truths which Jesus taught, there would have been no demand for Christian Science. That there was a demand is attested by the vast number of earnest men and women whose lives have been redeemed through the ministry of Christian Science, who have been saved from hopeless disease, raised from weakness and helplessness, and rescued from enslaving sin. Could one of these be convinced that he had not been discriminating in "matters religious"?

It would seem from our critic's exposition of the methods of Christian Scientists that his knowledge must have been gained from rather unreliable sources, and that if he has read the text-book at all, he has done so to very little purpose. The teachings of Christian Science have been fully tested and not found wanting by those who have honestly applied them, and the lives of Christian Scientists in any community give sufficient proof of the utility and practicality of these teachings.

Our critic's unkind reference to Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, should not pass without notice. This noble woman, whose life-record is one of good deeds and unselfish devotion to the cause of humanity, was accorded during her lifetime the highest respect and esteem by the world's best thinkers, and her memory is honored by thousands upon thousands of people whose lives have been uplifted through her loving and consecrated labors for mankind.

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