Article September 16, 1916 Issue

In a recent issue of the News, under the department of religion...

Ezra W. Palmer—Denver, Col.

The Rocky Mountain News

In a recent issue of the News, under the department of religion and social service, a clergyman in an address on the healing of sickness, at the Y. M. C. A., is quoted as making some references to Christian Science and healing by spiritual means which might be misleading. After stating that Jesus healed the sick, he is quoted as "telling of a number of cases where the body was affected through mental suggestion." If the gentleman wishes to convey the impression that the healing work of Jesus, or the healing done through the teachings of Christian Science, was the result of mental suggestion, he has a wrong view of the teachings of the Master as well as of Christian Science.

Mental suggestion is merely another name for mesmerism or hypnotism. It is the alleged control of one human mind over another. It was in vogue in Biblical times under various guises of sorcery, necromancy, witchcraft, Beelzebub. It is the counterfeit of that spiritual healing which Jesus practised and taught to his followers. Jesus declared that his works were done through knowledge of the Father; to use his own words, he cast out devils "with the finger of God." His healing power was of God, and the mesmeric action of mortal mind had no part in it. A wicked man may employ mental suggestion or hypnotism, but this action debars the use of Christian Science, which heals only through exact scientific understanding of God.

The gentleman admits that Christian Science heals the sick, but he thought it "overemphasized the spiritual." Does he mean to infer that there is something besides the spiritual which should be emphasized? Jesus did not so teach. He declared the truth, which overthrew the false beliefs of mortals. A student of geometry knows that he must stick to the truth of the proposition he would demonstrate or he can never prove its truth. He might be told by one who did not understand mathematics that his proposition overemphasized geometrical truths. Such a statement would merely provoke a smile from the student who knows he could never separate truth from error unless he held firmly to the logical basis of his work.

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