Article January 23, 1926 Issue

Those who are disposed to withhold credit from Christian Science...

Judge Clifford P. Smith,—North Attleboro

Evening Chronicle

Those who are disposed to withhold credit from Christian Science for reinstating the Christianity which both heals the sick and reforms the sinner, have made many queer statements in this connection, but one of the strangest that I have seen was reported in your recent issue. A minister of the Universalist Church was reported as saying that his church "was probably the first of the modern denominations to bring forth a ministry of healing, even anticipating the Christian Science church in this work, Mary Baker Eddy, Founder of Christian Science, being an acknowledged pupil of the Rev. Phineas Quomby, a Universalist minister." Doubtless this speaker alluded to "Dr." Phineas P. Quimby of Portland, Maine, to whom Mrs. Eddy went as a patient when she was an invalid before she discovered Christian Science.

"Dr." Quimby practiced personal magnetism or mesmerism. He was not a teacher of religion or any subject. Instead of being a Universalist minister, he was not a member of any church, and in his contact with patients he often argued against religion. As his biographer has said, he "spent much time setting his patients free from religious beliefs." According to the manuscripts which have been published as his, "Dr." Quimby himself said, "Religion and politics always went together, but science, progress, and good order never had anything to do with either."

It is entirely evident, therefore, that "Dr." Quimby did not represent the Universalist Church. It is also equally evident that Mrs. Eddy did not get any contribution to Christian Science from him. Christian Science is distinctly and exclusively a religion. Furthermore, it has no antecedent other than the religion of Christ Jesus. Speaking of this subject in her principal work, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 126), Mrs. Eddy said, "I have demonstrated through Mind the effects of Truth on the health, longevity, and morals of men; and I have found nothing in ancient or in modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master and the lives of prophets and apostles. The Bible has been my only authority."