Article August 19, 1922 Issue

The critic will find the answers to his questions as to...

William C. Brookes, Committee on Publication for the County of Midlothian, Scotland,

Edinburgh Scotsman

The critic will find the answers to his questions as to whether spiritual healing as practiced in the early church was successful, and why and when it was given up, in Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." Gibbon accepts as historic fact the healing of the sick by Jesus and his apostles and their early followers, and he writes: "If, in the beginning of the fifth century, Tertullian or Lactantius had been suddenly raised from the dead, to assist at the festival of some popular saint or martyr, they would have gazed with astonishment and indignation on the profane spectacle, which had succeeded to the pure and spiritual worship of a Christian congregation."

With regard to the critic's suggestion that perhaps the practice of Christian Science has been modified to some extent on account of its failures, I trust, sir, you will allow me to point out that since the practice of Christian Science is founded on the teachings of Jesus, as contained in the four gospels, that practice cannot be modified. Jesus is known throughout Christendom as the great Teacher; but his immediate followers did not always succeed in putting into practice what he had taught them (see the story of the epileptic boy in the ninth chapter of Mark's gospel); and neither do Christian Scientists always succeed. Mrs. Eddy, on page 577 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," speaks of her "feeble sense of Christian Science," but she healed hundreds of the sick and sinning.

The critic begins his references to Christian Science by calling it a "curious mélange of Gnosticism, Berkeleianism, and Theosophy," and by saying that "it owes its success to the fact that it has brought to the front the principles of 'spiritual healing.' " Does he really suppose that such a mixture could have any real success, or that it could bring to the front, that is, before the mind and conscience of thinking people, the facts of spiritual healing, the truths which underlay the practice of Jesus? On page 14 of "No and Yes," Mrs. Eddy says, "Theosophy is no more allied to Christian Science than the odor of the upas-tree is to the sweet breath of springtide"; and the critic need not go back to the Gnostics, or even to Bishop Berkeley, for his illustration regarding the futility of what he thinks is the teaching of Christian Science as to the unreality of matter. He need only refer to Anatole France's "On Life and Letters," in which he will find: "Time and space do not exist; neither does matter. What we so describe is precisely that which we do not know, the obstacle which baffles our senses. We know only one reality, thought." The critic will find a summary of the teachings of Christian Science in the Sermon on the Mount, which "is the essence of this Science" (Science and Health, p. 271).

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

The critic will find the answers to his questions as to...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access