Article June 9, 1928 Issue

The letter in Time, March 26, purporting to be from...

Judge Clifford P. Smith, Committee on Publication of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, Boston, Massachusetts,—New York, New York

Time

The letter in Time, March 26, purporting to be from C. L. Dean of Burlington, Iowa, caused me to inquire about him there to learn the reason for his bias against Christian Science. Careful inquiries at Burlington have failed to find any C. L. Dean. Apparently, therefore, the writer of the letter in question shrank behind an assumed name or place. His letter, however, indexed him to a certain extent by evincing heated intolerance for Christian Scientists because we choose to depend on spiritual law, power, and practice for prevention of or relief from disease. Therefore, I maintain that his intolerance is at least less creditable than our preference.

When Mrs. Eddy said, in 1883, that a million people then acknowledged and attested the blessings of Christian Science, she did not allude to the number of persons who had become members of the Church of Christ, Scientist; she rejoiced in the number of persons who had experienced or witnessed the benefits of Christian Science healing. In this denomination, the members constitute only a fraction of the number who are interested, and they constitute only a fraction of the number who have been healed or have observed the benefits of Christian Science healing. This is the case to-day, even though all of these numbers are much larger than they were in 1883.

Incidentally, I offer the information that Christian Scientists are not disposed to attach much importance to the matter of numbers. Thus, the following is part of a By-Law proposed by Mrs. Eddy and adopted for the Christian Science Mother Church: "According to the Scripture they [Christian Scientists] shall turn away from personality and numbering the people" (Church Manual, Art. VIII, Sect. 28). Christian Scientists, therefore, attach much more importance to qualities of thought than to numbers or statistics.

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