Article February 15, 1919 Issue

In line with many others who have expressed their approval...

W. Stuart Booth—Denver, Colo.

Rocky Mountain News

In line with many others who have expressed their approval of the News editorial advising against fear, it is certainly most appropriate that a word of appreciation from Christian Scientists be voiced, especially as a physician, writing in your columns, mentions Christian Scientists as cheerfully complying with the conditions. Although Christian Scientists obey all legal requirements, it can hardly be said that they cheerfully comply with whimsical conditions imposed at the instigation of a traveling doctor theorist.

Your warning against fear is not only sane and sensible, even from the materialistic standpoint, one of Denver's well-known physicians having said that this epidemic is ten per cent flu and ninety per cent fear, but the anti-fear attitude is decidedly Christian as well. If Christ Jesus were personally in our midst to-day he would not have to depend upon a gauze mask or any other material agency for protection against disease. His physical body would not be chemically different from that of any other person, but the divine quality of his thinking is generally recognized as being that which set him above all others, and it is this alone which would act as his unfailing protection, even as it acted as the only perfect healing agency the world has ever known. Now if instead of yielding to the suggested fear of disease, every individual would endeavor to follow the Bible injunction, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," thereby acknowledging God, good, as the only power, without doubt the words of the psalmist would be verified, "There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling."

The comparatively favorable experience in New York City and other places where this epidemic condition has been handled with a minimum of publicity and its attendant fears, should serve to awaken the public thought to an appreciation of the fact, vouchsafed by many physicians of high standing, that the element of fear is a most important one. Dr. John W. Crosky, president of the West Philadelphia Medical Association, says, "Terror is a big ally of the influenza, and if the public state of mind can be steered out of the channel of fright, a long, long step will have been taken to conquer this epidemic."

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