Article August 24, 1935 Issue

My attention has been called to an article recently printed...

W. Archibald Wallace, Committee on Publication for the State of West Virginia,—Madison

Recorder

My attention has been called to an article recently printed in the Recorder in which the claim is made that medical doctors are not held in the high esteem they once were, and this condition is attributed to a number of reasons, one of which is "lecturing to large audiences, by the cults," among which the author includes Christian Science. Because of the reference to "faith healing" and Christian Science, which may confuse some of your readers, and for the purpose of giving your subscribers some correct information, I ask you to kindly print this letter.

I have no desire to enter into a controversy with anyone, and I can assure the writer of the article referred to that Christian Scientists have no quarrel with the medical profession. On page 444 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has written, "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 differingopinions;" and again on page 151, "Great respect is due the motives and philanthropy of the higher class of physicians." These statements indicate our stand on that subject.

The writer said, "We do not question God's ability to heal, both body and soul, but it is just not done since the death of the apostles." It is recorded in the sixteenth chapter of Mark that while Jesus was talking with his disciples after his resurrection he said, "These signs shall follow them that believe," and closed his statement by saying, "They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Please note that he was speaking to the eleven, but he did not say, "These signs shall follow you," but "them"—"them that believe" throughout all time. Faith healing, as commonly understood, is not included in the practice of Christian Science, which is founded upon the works of the prophets and the words and works of Christ Jesus. A blind faith does not enter into the practice of Christian Science. On page 297 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy has written, "Until belief becomes faith, and faith becomes spiritual understanding, human thought has little relation to the actual or divine." It is through the understanding of the spiritual fact that God is infinite good, ever present and all-powerful, that He is the only creator, that all His creation is perfect, that evil and disease are not part of that perfect creation, hence are unreal, that the Christian Science practitioner is enabled to heal all manner of discordant conditions, moral, mental, and physical. Many thousands of people throughout the world have experienced this spiritual healing, and each issue of the religious periodicals of The Christian Science Publishing Society contains testimonies written by some of these people, telling in simple words of the regeneration which has followed in the healing of their various ailments. These testimonies are carefully verified before being published.

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