Article October 11, 1913 Issue

In a recent issue, the heading "Vegetarianism," there...

Frederick Dixon—London, England

Middlesex County Times

In a recent issue, the heading "Vegetarianism," there is a letter to editor in which the writer speaks of "so-called Christian Science." I shall be obliged if you will permit me to ask why the term "so-called" should be applied to Christian Science, and if you will let me explain as briefly as possible the claim of Christian Science to the terms Christian and Science.

The term Christian is capable of almost any definition which any sectarian view may endeavor to impose. We all know that during the two thousand years of the Christian era, sect after sect has a risen which has shown how it defines Christianity by murdering and persecuting all who differ from it. The pagan persecuted the early Christian, but the early Christian very soon learned how to persecute the later Christian. There is not a great deal of difference between the torches in the gardens of Nero and the autos-da-fe in the towns controlled by the Inquisition. If the test of the pagan in Rome was Christ or Diana, the test of the Christian in Rome very soon was the Vatican or Geneva, or something of the same nature. It has never been heard that the pagans of Rome murdered anybody for translating their sacred books; yet Wyclif, Tyndale, Coverdale, and innumerable others, were persecuted and some of them murdered for the attempt to translate the Latin Vulgate into the tongue of the common people, and to bring the translation within their reach.

The same thing has gone on ever since. The Church of England, having wrenched itself free from Rome, with the bitter jest that the figures of the saints in St. Paul's would make a jolly blaze in Smithfield, proceeded to persecute the Covenanter and the Dissenter generally in its own way. The drowning of Margaret McLachlan and Margaret Wilson may have been more or less isolated facts, but the boot was for a long time in about as common use as the rack had been. These, in short, were the tests for many years as to whether a man was a Christian or a "so-called" Christian.

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