Article January 29, 1916 Issue

Your correspondent is anxious to know who would be "foolish...

Samuel Greenwood

The Hedley (British Columbia) Gazette

Your correspondent is anxious to know who would be "foolish and weak-minded enough" to try to heal a sick body by spiritual means. If he will read the Old and the New Testament carefully, he will find the names of a large number who were willing to be just that foolish. He will find out more if he will read Gibbon's account of the healing practised by the early Christian church. The prophets and apostles, and the Master himself, are naturally included in this sweeping condemnation, so that Christian Scientists need not be ashamed to be found in such illustrious company.

How foolish and weak-minded it must have been on the part of Daniel in the lions' den, and the three Hebrews cast into the furnace, to have used spiritual means to effect the escape of their bodies! I suppose our critic would have had them contentedly submit to the apparently inevitable, and be meekly eaten and burned, rather than have had them ignore the material laws in the case and to rely upon spiritual means. And think of Paul, how weak-minded it was for him to use spiritual means to restore the young man who had fallen out of the window and was taken up as one dead. And how foolish of the apostle James to counsel the sick to send for the elders of the church, that they might pray over him; and to think of his saying that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick." I wonder that our friend has patience to read these things, since he scouts the idea of there being any virtue in spiritual means.

What relation does God bear to men, if they cannot go to Him in physical trouble with any prospect of obtaining help? Are we to infer that one is wise and strong-minded in the ratio that he trusts material things in preference to spiritual? The large majority of those who have been healed in Christian Science had been given up by their physicians. Was it then foolish for them to allow themselves to be healed by spiritual means? Should they have been content with the verdict of their physicians, and either continue to suffer or to die, according to the program laid out for them? Many of these people were suffering from what is called organic disease, and some of these cases I have known personally. Let me say that in my own experience, after ten years of failure on the part of physicians to bring even temporary relief, I was healed by the use of spiritual means as applied in Christian Science. Very foolish and weak-minded, of course, but it has proved immensely comforting these many years. If it is foolish to rely upon God for physical help, what course would our critic advise the people to take who are unable to find relief in material means?

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