Article May 26, 1923 Issue

No one can study the textbook of Christian Science,...

Samuel J. Macdonald, Committee on Publication for the State of New Jersey,—Asbury Park

Evening Press

No one can study the textbook of Christian Science, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and fail to see that there is a great gulf fixed between Christian Science and all forms of hypnotism and suggestion. To cite but one brief passage: on page 101 of the textbook Mrs. Eddy writes: "In no instance is the effect of animal magnetism, recently called hypnotism, other than the effect of illusion. Any seeming benefit derived from it is proportional to one's faith in esoteric magic."

The critic objects to Christian Science because it says there is no matter. He will, on this ground, have to object likewise to the physicist, who now says the same thing. Nearly half a century after Mrs. Eddy startled the world by declaring the unreality of matter, many physical scientists arrived at the same conclusion. One of the latest expressions of a noted physical scientist upon this question is that of Dr. Charles P. Steinmetz, consulting engineer of the General Electric Company, who, in an address delivered in Schenectady, New York, November 5, 1922, said: "Science derives its conclusions by the laws of logic from our sense perceptions. Thus it does not deal with the real world, of which we know nothing, but with the world as it appears to our senses."

Christian Scientists are fully aware of the wisdom of Christ Jesus' counsel, "Suffer it to be so now." On this point Mrs. Eddy writes, pertinently and clearly, on page 254 of Science and Health: "God requires perfection, but not until the battle between Spirit and flesh is fought and the victory won. To stop eating, drinking, or being clothed materially before the spiritual facts of existence are gained step by step, is not legitimate."

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