Article March 10, 1928 Issue

I would appreciate space in your columns for comment...

Orwell Bradley Towne, Committee on Publication for the State of New York,—New York

Jewish Tribune

I would appreciate space in your columns for comment on the article by a rabbi, which appeared in the Jewish Tribune under the caption, "Christian and Jewish Science." The article is unjust, and does not conform to the facts. One might not expect a religious publication to take up the support of another religious organization, but the advocacy of the faith which gave the Ten Commandments to the world certainly should be expected to exemplify that one of the ten which reads, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour." The criticism of Christian Science funerals and the conduct of bereaved Christian Science families proves nothing. Funerals are not incidents peculiar to Christian Scientists of Jewish extraction. Neither is criticism of or dissatisfaction with, the physician or practitioner attending an individual who did not get his healing anything peculiar to Christian Scientists. We have had the medical profession with us since the days of Hippocrates; and quite a few people have failed in that time to get their healing under medical attendance. Dissatisfaction with the medical profession for its failures is not rare.

The rabbi's article cites a few cases which have not been healed in Christian Science; but the article does not mention the thousands upon thousands of well-authenticated cases of disease healed under the ministrations of Christian Science. These cases are on record and include among them practically every known disease. The article complains of the danger of disease to children in schools and communities from Christian Scientists' children who have not been "immunized." The supposition is that all children except the Christian Scientists' children would be immunized; so the former would seem to be fully protected by the immunization, even from the standpoint of the rabbi's article. Where the danger to them would be under such circumstances, the rabbi does not explain. As for the attitude of Christian Scientists toward physicians, Mrs. Eddy herself has said in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 164), "It is just to say that generally the cultured class of medical practitioners are grand men and women, therefore they are more scientific than are false claimants to Christian Science." Again, on page 444 of the same volume Mrs. Eddy says: "Students are advised by the author to be charitable and kind, not only towards differing forms of religion and medicine, but to those who hold these differing opinions. Let us ... also be careful always to 'judge righteous judgment,' and never to condemn rashly."

Medical practice is constantly changing, and the trend, as indicated by Dr. Llewellyn F. Barker in his address before the American Medical Association at its Baltimore convention, is toward the mental. In discussing the mental aspect of disease, its mental cause and mental cure, Dr. Barker made this remarkable statement: "When this branch of the profession, that is, mental therapy, becomes better and more widely understood, the physician will cut malignant growths from the mind and memory with scalpels of sympathy and compassion as he now removes them from the physical body." The rabbi's article indicates that many Jews are attracted to Christian Science because "Christian Science seemed to ask little exact study and discipline." This statement is probably due to total unfamiliarity with the facts. Daily watchfulness is enjoined both in the Church Manual and in the Christian Science textbook mentioned above. Mrs. Eddy writes on page 4 of the textbook: "Simply asking that we may love God will never make us love Him; but the longing to be better and holier, expressed in daily watchfulness and in striving to assimilate more of the divine character, will mould and fashion us anew, until we awake in His likeness." As for Christian Scientists monopolizing the beautiful twenty-third psalm or any other portion of the Hebrew Bible, let it be said that there is not a Christian Scientist who does not thank God daily—yes, many times a day—for the beautiful truths, the gems of wisdom and tender benediction, which Hebrew psalmist, king, and prophet have handed down literally for the bodily, mental, and spiritual peace, comfort, and encouragement of all mankind. In fact, all Christendom has paid the Hebrews the highest compliment by making the recorded deeds and sayings of their great men and women a permanent part of the Christian Bible and giving full credit to both the chronicler and the race.

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