Article August 30, 1913 Issue

I have to thank Mr. W. R. Rose for the courtesy of his...

Frederick Dixon—Ashford, England.

Kentish Express

I have to thank Mr. W. R. Rose for the courtesy of his allusion to my earlier letter. At the same time, will you permit me to point out that he is simply engaged in enforcing the whole of my argument, that the sole reply of sectarianism to anything new is always a half–angry, half–frightened cry of "Heresy!" and that is exactly why I quoted the saying of a brilliant bishop of the Church of England, unfortunately a little hackneyed today by usage, to the effect that "orthodoxy is my doxy, heterodoxy is the other fellow's doxy." Strangely enough, immediately the heretic has become orthodox, he has proceeded to treat all other heretics as he was once treated. His argument, that is to say, has been the time–honored one of abuse and persecution. As a result, we have seen that magnificent saying, "See how Christians love one another," used by the agnostic with a sarcastic reference to the records of Christendom which it is impossible to question or dispute. Presumably, the anticipation of this was one of the things which led Christ Jesus to demand practise as well as preaching from his followers. He knew perfectly well how easy preaching often could be, and yet how difficult practise always is. To the command to "preach the gospel," therefore, he added the corollary to "heal the sick," and if I may say so again, at the risk of being tedious, he, and no other than he, made the power to repeat his works the test of a man's Christianity, so that undoubtedly a man may claim to be a Christian in the exact proportion in which he repeats those works.

Mrs. Eddy, accepting the teaching of Jesus totally and not fragmentarily, as a scientific revelation and not merely as a rule of philosophical ethics, demanded that the members of the Christian Science church should prove their faith by their works, so as to show that that faith was not dead. When the critics of Christian Science give up the futile habit of centuries, and instead of writing letters to the papers to shout "Heresy!" give a little more active proof that they are right and a little less acrimonious assertion that their opponents are wrong, they will impress humanity considerably more than they are doing at the present time.

Finally, will you permit me to say that the failure of the Vicar of Tenterden to attempt to explain the quotations he professes to have made from Mrs. Eddy's works, scarcely needs comment. He quoted Mrs. Eddy in the pulpit, and, in order that there might be no mistake about it, he quoted her, in inverted commas, in his Parish Magazine. When asked for his authority for these quotations, he relapses into silence. I will tell your readers that nobody is to be found who has ever heard of these quotations, and therefore there is only one honorable course for him to pursue, and that is, if he cannot produce his authority for them, to own that they were manufactured. I think his parishioners, in common with the enormous number of people throughout not only the county of Kent, but the world, who have by this time become acquainted with his utterances, will expect him to take one course or the other.

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