Article December 2, 1916 Issue

The attack on Christian Science by a Newark preacher...

Judge Clifford P. Smith

Morristown (N. J.) Jerseyman

The attack on Christian Science by a Newark preacher which was printed in the Jerseyman was so mistaken as to be an imposition on the public. The writer's bias was betrayed by the manner in which he referred to Mrs. Eddy. For instance, he spoke of her as the "much be-married Mrs. Eddy." Such an expression constitutes what Jesus called "the leaven of the Pharisees." It does not explicitly state a derogatory fact, but it is calculated to convey a derogatory impression by insinuation.

Mrs. Eddy was married three times in eighty-nine years. Her first marriage occurred when she was twenty-two years old, but it was ended within six months by her husband's decease. Her second marriage took place nearly ten years later, when she was thirty-two years old. It was dissolved twenty years afterward by a divorce which she obtained for long continued desertion caused by her husband's adultery. Her third marriage occurred four years later, when she was fifty-six years old, and it was followed after five years by twenty-eight years of widowhood, which continued to the end of her earthly life. The facts are such, therefore, that Mrs. Eddy's marriages furnish no reason for criticism nor excuse for insinuation.

The same assailant also said that Christian Scientists put Mrs. Eddy before Christ, and he offered as proof the alleged fact that Christ is not given credit for his words over the pulpit of The Mother Church in Boston, while quotations from Mrs. Eddy are "blazoned" with her name. Christian Scientists do not put Mrs. Eddy before Jesus or Christ; they could not do this without rejecting her teaching. The quotations on the walls of The Mother Church have the names of the persons quoted immediately under their words. The quotations over the pulpit or readers' platform are from St. Paul and Mrs. Eddy. At the sides of this platform and above it are two quotations, one credited to Christ Jesus, the other to Mrs. Eddy. All these quotations and names are cut in gray stone, not artificially colored, and the names are cut in the same sized letters as the quotations. The condition of thought which would make a visitor see these quotations with one name omitted and the other blazoned is not conducive to just or fair criticism.

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