Article August 7, 1926 Issue

Will you kindly allow me to correct some misleading...

Mrs. Agnata F. Butler, Committee on Publication for Cambridgeshire, England,

Cambridge Review

Will you kindly allow me to correct some misleading statements with regard to Christian Science in the article, "Freedom of Discussion," in your recent number? The writer has apparently not cared to acquaint himself with the actual teaching of Christian Science before condemning it, or he would not have accused its adherents of expressing "the opinion that disease can be cured by suggestion," whether with or "without medical advice." The fact is precisely the reverse. Christian Scientists are convinced that disease can never be radically cured by suggestion, and they strongly deprecate its use, believing that it must always weaken the patient's power of self-government, even if it alleviates or removes the symptoms of a particular ailment. They hold that the cures of primitive Christianity were neither supernatural nor the results of suggestion, but demonstrations of the power of God, divine Mind, Truth, working through spiritual law to dispel the mesmeric and poisonous influence of erring human thought upon the body. They hold that the law of Truth is not different to-day from what it was two thousand years ago, and that it can be applied and demonstrated in the measure that it is understood and obeyed.

This conviction is not with them a matter of theory, but is supported by innumerable proofs that cures of organic as well as functional disease are being achieved in all quarters of the globe through the rediscovery of this spiritual law by Mrs. Eddy, author of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Verified records of these cures can be seen week by week in the Christian Science periodicals, in any of the free Reading Rooms of the organization. In a recent address at Harvard, Dr. R. Cabot, professor of Clinical Medicine and Social Ethics in that university, remarked with reference to Christian Science, "I have not the slightest doubt that it does good, that it cures disease, organic as well as functional" (Harvard Alumni Bulletin, December 31, 1925).

If the fact that, at this early stage of its history, there have been failures to demonstrate the healing power of Christian Science justifies the use of such terms as "crass folly of a kind dangerous to human life," what system of healing could escape condemnation? Sir Victor Horsley once made the statement, in a letter to the Times, that if inquests were to be held on every death following an operation, there would need to be ten thousand inquests a years in London alone. Surely the only reasonable method of judgment is a comparison of failures with successes, and of the general health of Christian Scientists and their families with that of the followers of other systems.

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