Editorial January 1, 1916 Issue

"One thing I know"

Archibald McLellan

The fact that so many persons have become Christian Scientists because they have been healed of disease through the ministration of those who practise Mrs. Eddy's teachings, has led some to believe that physical healing is the sole aim and purpose of Christian Science. For this reason many of the published criticisms of this Science have had to do only with this phase of its ministry, and the attempt has always been to discredit in one way or another the statements made by those who have been healed. These critics have assumed to believe that the testimonies of healing given at our Wednesday evening meetings and through our periodicals are based upon the more or less amateurish diagnoses of those who give these testimonies; therefore their criticisms of Christian Science healing have been based upon the supposition that the persons referred to were simply victims of their own imagination, because the supposed serious nature of the ailments from which they suffered was not substantiated by the diagnoses of physicians.

The facts are, however, that very few persons who turn to Christian Science for healing do so until they have unsuccessfully tried one or more medical systems and have been treated by one or several physicians. It is likewise to be noted that the diagnoses reported by them in their statements concerning their healing are the diagnoses of these same physicians. While it is quite true that in at least half of these instances (according to the admission of an authority in medical circles) the diagnoses may have been wrong, it is also true that these diagnoses were given to the patient and his friends by the physicians in attendance, and formed the basis for whatever treatment was administered by them. As such they stand in precisely the same relation to the truth as do all other physical diagnoses, and undoubtedly they would have been the foundation for death certificates if these had become necessary.

Further than this, another physician of long experience and high standing declares that aside from a limited number of diseases the symptoms of which are unmistakable, in nine cases out of ten that come to him for diagnosis and treatment the doctor can only "make a guess" at the real nature of the disease, and prescribe experimentally until he hits upon something that seems to meet the conditions, with, in the wholly baffling cases which every physician occasionally gets, a postmortem as a last resort.

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