Article May 20, 1916 Issue

In reading the report of a lecture in the Tribune, one is...

Avery Coonley—Princeton, Ill.

Bureau County Tribune,

In reading the report of a lecture in the Tribune, one is constrained to wonder why, if Christian Science is not successfully healing disease of all kinds, this critic should have had occasion to refer to it at all. Nearly half a century has elapsed since Mrs. Eddy first proclaimed it to the world as the reinstatement of "primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual, p. 17); and if it had not been doing that which Jesus and his followers did and which it boldly declares is just as possible today as it was then, it would certainly have collapsed instead of constantly drawing to it a larger and larger constituency of intelligent people.

The fact is that our critic does not accord to the healings accomplished through Christian Science the same recognition he would if they had been brought about by the method in which he has confidence. The healing through Christian Science of a long list of serious diseases, including cancer, tumor, tuberculosis, hernia, has been a matter of public knowledge and susceptible of investigation for more than two score years. One cannot repudiate these cures without discrediting the diagnoses of hundreds of reputable physicians. Even so it would tax human credulity to declare that out of hundreds of thousands of diagnoses only those particular thousands had turned out to be mistakes which had had Christian Science treatment, the balance having been correct. The only rational course is to recognize the fact, which is gradually becoming common knowledge, that already Christian Science is to be reckoned as one of the great healing agencies of the present day.

Possibly one of the reasons why the lecturer could not bring himslef to credit the healing record of Christian Science is that he mistakenly believes this teaching to be nothing more than superstition. Indeed this is the estimate he places upon the whole subject of divine healing, for it is stated of Christian Science, "and all other beliefs for the cure of the ills of mankind," that he attributed them "to the ... sincerity of the believer, rather than the efficacy of the religion." By this process, whether he realizes it or not, in order to make the records check with his views on the subject of healing, he has impeached the testimony of the Bible and expunged the healing record of the great Physician; for if spiritual healing is superstition, then it is so in one age as well as in another, and was so in the first few centuries of the Christian era.

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