Article July 26, 1913 Issue

As the opinion expressed by our critic is a personal one...

H. Cornell Wilson

Waterlown (N. Y.) Times

As the opinion expressed by our critic is a personal one and fails to represent the mature judgment of a very considerable population in other countries as well as here, I will ask your permission to state briefly wherein Christian Science differs from this gentleman's mistaken concept of it. Before doing this, however, I would like to cite brief extracts from opinions by other ministers, appreciative of Christian Science. One who has spent thirty-four years in the ministry, and has been well and favorably known in a prominent denomination, writes: "I have been kindly and divinely led into the borderland of a fuller sense of Life, Truth, and Love. To me Mrs. Eddy's message is the renaissance of Christianity, a return to the simplicity of Jesus' teaching and work, and through this rebirth I have gained an understanding of God which has illumined the teaching of Scripture and interpreted the vital truth of primitive Christianity." A pastor representing the same denomination as our critic, is reported as saying in a recent public statement: "There is so much good in the teachings of Christian Science that much might well be adopted by other religions. The works of Christian healing are as clearly a part of the commission of Christianity as is the preaching." These at any rate consider that Christian Science is Christian. There are also many others engaged in active religious work as carried on by other denominations, who either through experience or careful investigation have changed their prejudiced views of Christian Science, having discovered it to be what it is, namely, the scientific Christianity proclaimed in the life and practise of Jesus the Christ.

To misunderstand the purpose of Christian Science often brings about a misinterpretation of its results. For instance, it may not be generally known that the physical healing associated with Christian Science, and fully credited by our critic, is incidental to, a result of, the spiritual regeneration which is the prime object of all its effort. Christian Science is not a system of mental healing as the term is ordinarily applied; it is essentially and primarily a religion. On this point Mrs. Eddy says: "The mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world" (Science and Health, p. 150).

Our critic, having failed to grasp this and other important points necessary to an understanding of Christian Science, claims that "suggestion," or "auto-suggestion,"—hypnotism, in fact,—accounts for its works of healing. Thus the effort is made, but in vain, to place Christian Science on the plane occupied by many systems of mental healing (a number of which he has mentioned), where results depend upon the control of one human mind or will over another. This method of control, as our critic has pointed out, may be employed for an evil purpose as readily as for a good one. It constitutes, according to Jesus, a "kingdom divided against itself," which "shall not stand." The same charge was brought against the Master. The Pharisees declared that he cast out devils—referring specifically to his healing of the man who was both blind and dumb—by Beelzebub. To this charge he replied, "If I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? ... But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you."

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