Article November 29, 1913 Issue

As quoted in a recent issue, Dr. Rowena Morse Mann of...

George Shaw Cook—Bloomington, Ill

The Daily Bulletin

As quoted in a recent issue, Dr. Rowena Morse Mann of Chicago criticizes Christian Science for its attempt to cure poverty and disease by "magic," without regard to the cause thereof. As a matter of fact, this is precisely what Christian Science does not do. On the contrary, Mrs. Eddy in the Christian Science text-book says, "The Christian Scientist finds only effects, where the ordinary physician looks for causes" (Science and Health, p. 379). In other words, the medical doctor is constantly examining the diseased conditions of the physical body as though they were the cause of suffering, whereas the Christian Scientist regards these physical conditions as being merely the effects of some mental cause. Therefore the Christian Scientist, in his treatment of a case of disease, goes directly to the seat of the trouble, and his endeavor is to remove or correct the primary cause of all sickness. The matter physician, in his diagnosis of disease, rarely goes beyond the physical condition, especially if it be considered organic, and therefore in his treatment he deals almost entirely with what the metaphysician regards as mere effects of an erroneous mental state. This will explain to some extent why Christian Science treatment has cured many cases of organic disease which have baffled the ordinary physician.

Some years ago a noted chemist was reported to have discovered upward of forty kinds of poison directly produced in or on the physical body by human emotions, such as fear, anger, worry, hatred, etc. If this chemist's experiments were based upon fact, and I do not know of their ever having been questioned, then is it not plain that many cases of chronic poisoning in the system may be directly traceable to a chronic disposition to be angry or hateful? Is it not as reasonable to admit this as to recognize the fact that acute fear immediately manifests itself in a blanched face? If one is obliged to admit the mental cause of some kinds of physical disease, why not agree with Christian Science that primarily all disease is due to a mental cause? This does not mean that sickness is always the result of conscious fear or wilful sin. Many types of disease are effects of latent fear, hereditary temperament, superstition, ignorance, or some of the generally accepted beliefs of the human mind which seem to operate as law. Suppose a man is sick because of one or more of these mental causes,—will drugs cure him? Is there any antitoxin that will destroy hatred, or any serum that will prevent fear? Nothing but the knowledge that God is Love, and that man as the image and likeness of God is in truth or reality nothing less than the expression of Love, and therefore can not and does not fear or hate, will effect a permanent cure in such a case.

With regard to poverty, it has been well said that a sociologist and a socialist rarely discuss the subject without very quickly coming to a parting of the ways, for one will insist that environment and other influences cause intemperance, and intemperance causes poverty and crime, while the other will cliam that poverty itself is the cause of poor environment and discouragement, which in turn afford an excuse for intemperance and crime. Both place the ultimate responsibility upon the community, and both see the remedy in legislation and institutional endeavor. The Christian Scientist recognizes the causes of poverty as appetite, indolence, dishonesty, fear, discouragement, ignorance, superstition, etc., all purely mental qualities, and goes to work correct in the thought of the individual those conditions of belief which have held him in bondage to lack and limitation. When his work is finished, the individual is reformed and restored to a normal earning capacity, and his poverty is presently outgrown. Through reformation of the individual comes ultimate transformation of the community, and because this fact has been discerned by Christian Scientists, they prefer to devote their time to individual reformation, beginning with themselves, rather than to institutional work.

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