Please allow me space in your column to make a statement...

Mrs. Annie I. Rembert, Committee on Publication for the State of South Carolina,—Charleston

News and Courier

Please allow me space in your column to make a statement in regard to an article in your issue of October 30. The caption, "Healing By Faith Hit as Christian Science," has reference to the opposition of a prominent Episcopalian in New York to the recent action taken by the bishops and laymen at the general convention of the Episcopal church held in October, at which time the joint report of the healing commission of the church was adopted and faith-healing was definitely recommended.

It is well to note that the method of healing advocated by the healing commission provides for the participation of the medical profession, so that the priests and the physicians labor together to bring about the desired results.

Christian Scientists oppose this mixture of material and spiritual means, and point to the healing done by Jesus the Christ as authority for their position. Mary Baker Eddy, Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, expresses her views on this subject when she writes, on page 143 of the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures": "It is plain that God does not employ drugs or hygiene, nor provide them for human use; else Jesus would have recommended and employed them in his healing."

The gentleman opposing the action of his church also denounces Christian Science. He says, and reasonably so, that if mankind turns to God in every discordant condition, in time of sickness as well as sin, and finds this divine remedy sufficient to meet its needs, that "there will be no need of medical science or surgery ... and these would of necessity depart from the face of the earth." This is precisely what happened in Jesus' experience. Although a small percentage of the people of his time came within the radius of that healing consciousness, for them who came, contagion, disease, sin, and death itself fled away because these material conditions could not function in the spiritual atmosphere in which he lived.

Until that great day shall dawn, when all men everywhere shall accept the loving ministrations of the Christ, of which Christ Jesus said, "Lo, I am with you alway;" until mankind is convinced of the inability of material means to bring lasting benefit, may the medical faculty and Christian Scientists both reflect the spirit of Abraham when he parted from Lot: "Let there be no strife, I pray thee, between me and thee ... for we be brethren."

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