Article June 14, 1913 Issue

HEALING AND PRAYER

LOUISE SATTERTHWAITE.

When I first heard of Christian Science and was told that these people thought they healed the sick by prayer, I asked, "Are they mad?" Some time afterward I was impressed on reading one of George Bernard Shaw's books, in which he speaks of Christian Scientists as consistent enough to rely for all things upon the God whom they declare, and believe to be, omnipotent.

At the time that I pronounced Christian Scientists mad because they relied on prayer to heal the sick, I believed myself upheld in this opinion by all that is intelligent, and by common sense, and yet at that time I was suffering from the failure of the best-known, and I might say the most expensive, medical methods for relieving disease. I had taken whatever was prescribed for me by specialists at the head of their profession, and had painstakingly done all they had told me to do, and as carefully refrained from doing all they had forbidden. I hung upon the words of the physician with faith and awe; I regarded his professional judgment as the last word of the science which continually announces new and important discoveries. This is said, not in a critical spirit, since among my physicians there were honest thinkers and hard workers, who labored most earnestly to help me; nevertheless, the conditions grew steadily worse.

Very relevant, surprisingly so to me, is the colloquy of Macbeth and the court physician, where Macbeth says:—

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