Article January 9, 1915 Issue

Your correspondent of recent date who asserts his belief...

Frank Bell—Reading, Pa.

The News-Times

Your correspondent of recent date who asserts his belief that homeopathy and Christian Science are identical and are "faith-cure, pure and simple," is mistaken. Homeopathy, while dispensing largely with the so-called substance of the drug, clings to at least some of the form and all of the objects of the drugging system, whereas Christian Science eschews not only material means but the semblance thereof, and is intent upon an entirely different achievement. By diluting the drug until but an infinitesimal part remains in a given dose, and yet accomplishing therewith the same results as did the old school potion at full strength, homeopathy illustrates the extent to which "faith," or belief, and not the drug itself, is accountable for the effects produced by materia medica. Homeopathy represents a step forward in the emphasis it places on the mental quality of medicines, but homeopathy has not gotten away from the belief in the necessity of "giving something" to the body.

If the various schools of medicine and the several systems of so-called faith-healing were to achieve their admittedly impossible goal, so that nowhere on earth could be found a person whose body manifested a single symptom of disease, the work that is for Christian Science to do would not be thereby diminished in the slightest degree. The reason for this is, that Christian Science is a religion. Both its processes and its purposes are spiritual, not material. Its ministrations have been marked by an unparalleled record of diseases healed, but this healing is an incidental, though legitimate, result of an effort of an altogether higher order.

Christian Science is concerned primarily with the overcoming of sin. It cannot be successfully adopted as a mere substitute for medicine by those who are persistently unwilling to become better men and women. Healing in Christian Science is one of the fruits of intelligent righteousness, and because of this no other means of healing, whether physical or mental, which strives only to make humanity comfortable in matter, may be said to resemble it in any important respect.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Your correspondent of recent date who asserts his belief...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access