Article August 28, 1926 Issue

The further attack on Christian Science reported in your...

Judge Clifford P. Smith, Committee on Publication for The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts, in the—Worcester

The further attack on Christian Science reported in your recent issue again illustrates the improprieties which are likely to be committed by a sectarian when he turns aside from preaching his own religion and engages in throwing bricks at other religions and other religionists.

For instance, the minister allowed himself to assert that Christian Science was not founded by Mary Baker Eddy, but was founded by "Dr." P. P. Quimby, whom he describes as a "faith healer." As a matter of establishing historical fact, Phineas P. Quimby of Portland, Maine, was not a faith healer, and was not the author of what Mrs. Eddy afterward discovered and founded as Christian Science. He practiced personal magnetism or mesmerism. He was not a member of any church, and did not teach faith in God. On the contrary, he often argued against religion.

The assertion that "Dr." Quimby was the author or founder of Christian Science began with a quite different and more limited claim made by his son, George A. Quimby. Fortunately for all fair-minded people desiring to be correctly informed, the younger Mr. Quimby stated his claim precisely, so that the bigger claims subsequently made by opponents of Christian Science can be clearly distinguished. Thus, in a letter dated August 19, 1904, which has been published a considerable number of times, George A. Quimby stated his claim as follows: "No one, least of all myself, disputes her [Mrs. Eddy's] claims that she is the orginator of Christian Science, so far as the religious aim goes. It is all hers. ... But so far as she claims to have orginated the treatment of disease mentally, she lies."

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