Article November 27, 1915 Issue

The Lectures

with contributions from Manley O. Hudson, Francis Atwell

In introducing William R. Rathvon, who lectured on Christian Science, Manley O. Hudson, of the law school of the University of Missouri at Columbia, Mo., said in part:—

It is indeed a pleasure to me to be permitted to preside at this meeting and to introduce the speaker of the evening. Though I am not a Christian Scientist, I am interested in Christian Science as a part of one of the big movements of our time. If we should suddenly be transported to the planet Mars, I wonder what it would be that would most interest us there. Would it not be the difference between the thinking of the people there and our own? Surely, the really distinguishing thing about any society is its thinking. The Missouri of today is vastly different from the Missouri of yesterday, or the Turkey of today, only because of the difference in ideas.

Conservative people are prone to conclude that because an idea is firmly intrenched in society, it must necessarily be right. How frequently does one hear it argued in defense of an idea that it is generally accepted as true. It would be easy enough to point to conspicuous instances in history which refute such an argument. Why do people who believe that ideas are wrong so frequently believe they cannot be righted? Why do they so frequently refrain from doing anything to change them? You will hear a man say tomorrow that war is futile but that it will take a hundred years to convince the world that this is true; and his conclusion will be that because it will take a hundred years nothing should be done now. Then he makes it a job of more than a hundred years. His is really a gospel of the futility of effort, which no optimistic person can accept.

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