Article September 13, 1913 Issue

In a recent issue there are two references to Christian Science...

Frederick Dixon—London, England

London Budget

In a recent issue there are two references to Christian Science, one in the shape of a cable from New York and the other in an article by the Rev. A. J. Waldron. With respect to the New York cable, permit me to point out that to claim divinity for Mrs. Eddy is to contradict every word Mrs. Eddy has ever taught. If there is one thing made more clear than another in Mrs. Eddy's works, it is that no human being can possibly be termed divine. Mr. Waldron, on the other hand, always speaks sympathetically of Christian Science, and he is perfectly right in maintaining that Christian Science denounces hypnotism. The mere fact that the power claimed by the hypnotist can be used for doing evil as easily as for doing good, should be a sufficient criticism of its acceptance by the Christian Church. Hypnotism was nothing new to the world, though it was called by a different name in the time of Jesus of Nazareth, and certainly it has never been denounced more thoroughly than by him. On the face of it, it is the claim of the power of the human mind to do both good and evil, and so it can be nothing but the fruit of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," which, according to the book of Genesis, ultimates in death.

The wonder-workers of the East were well known in Palestine, with the result that for centuries the best of the kings and the prophets had carried on a war of extermination against them. As a result, when the high priests and the Pharisces were looking about them for any accusation to bring against Jesus, to discount the healing done by him, they could think of nothing better than to declare that he cast out devils through Beelzebub; in plain English, that he used the arts of the exorcists and the necromancers. Jesus, however, who knew perfectly well that his accusers had winked at exorcism when it suited them, silenced them by his barbed question as to whom their children cast out devils by, if he cast them out by Beelzebub, adding that they should be their judges. It was not his method, however, to be satisfied with a mere negation, and picking up the metaphor of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," he pointed out that a house divided against itself could not stand. He could hardly have said more clearly that the claim of the human mind, itself conscious of good and evil, to cast out evil was an impossible one.

Jesus did not, of course, leave the matter here. He went on to explain to his listeners what true Christian healing was. "If," he said, "I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." It is quite manifest that the kingdom of God never came to any one by mental suggestion from a mind conscious of good and evil, and so divided against itself. The history of suggestion, in all ages, has shown that this so-called power is much more likely to be abused than anything else, seeing that the human mind is torn with all the passions and desires of evil. What Mrs. Eddy did do, and what has distinguished her from all the religious teachers from the days of primitive Christianity, was to show that it is an entire mistake to suppose that there is any reality or power in evil; and that the attempt to claim power for the suggestions of the human mind is paralyzed and rendered impotent the moment the recognition of the fact takes place that the only power is good.

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