Article June 7, 1913 Issue

The reference to Christian Science under the heading...

Frederick Dixon—Birmingham, England.

Evening Despatch

The reference to Christian Science under the heading "Success Makes Health," in a recent issue, is distinctly interesting, as it shows that in the opinion of two eminent medical men the effect of the mind upon sickness is beginning to be understood, and they are not alone in insisting on this. Only recently, to take one other single case, a well-known doctor has been insisting upon the efficacy of Christian Science healing, and he quoted a case of the healing of locomotor ataxia which came under his own notice. At the same time Christian Science healing is a great deal more scientific than the average reader or writer has any suspicion. Optimism is an excellent thing, and the temperament of Mark Tapley is always more healthy than that of Mrs. Gummidge. Nevertheless, optimism, as understood in Christian Science, is not the mere hopefulness of the one who is waiting "for something to turn up," but the result of a scientific understanding of the allness and omnipotence of God. The statement that God is good, repeated as a mere theological dogma, amounts to very little, and in the minds of those who rely upon it, is vitiated by the perpetual reminder of the hospital and the prison. Christian Science relies on no such exercise of blind faith; it relies on faith, certainly, but it is the faith which comes to the Scientist as, watching the operation of certain spiritual laws, he begins to have confidence in his ability to demonstrate some truth beyond his present knowledge; that is to say, to take a familiar example, the realization that two and two make four, gives the mathematician faith in his ability correctly to work out a more abstruse problem.

When first the perception of a new fact dawns on the consciousness, the person who perceives it begins to believe; as the perception broadens out into a clearer realization, the belief deepens into faith; and, ultimately, as this perception becomes scientifically understood, faith itself becomes knowledge. It is for this reason that Mrs. Eddy has written on page 297 of Science and Health: "Mortal testimony can be shaken. Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine." Something like this must have been present to the mind of the writer of the fourth gospel in the distinction he makes between the two Greek phrases of believing a person and believing on a person. Believing Jesus, meant believing his statement that he was the Christ. This was blind faith; but believing on Jesus, meant the gaining of the spiritual understanding and of the knowledge of what was implied in his claim to the Messiahship. It was to those who believed him merely, though the distinction is unfortunately lost in the translation, that Jesus addressed the warning that discipleship constituted something more than a mere acceptance of a statement. The optimism of Christian Science is the mental condition resulting from the certainty that the allness of God, good, is a demonstrable fact. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

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