In glancing over the pages of the great daily newspapers of this country—the journals of immense circulation and corresponding influence—the average right-thinking man is often moved to wish that there was less of enterprise and more of morality in the business of journalism.
The "sensational incident" at the Young Men's Christian Association service is to be deplored, and no one regrets it more than the friend whose zeal for the moment got the better of his judgment.
The idea that Christianity is good for the body as well as the soul of man has been relegated to the background, and a great part of the church has contented itself with an expression of belief that the age of miracles had passed and explained the statements made to Christ's disciples about the ability to heal diseases as being confined to those early days, or else maintained that the spiritual healing was the most important work.
When our critic talks of Christian Scientists having "the audacity" to treat cases the "symptoms of which they do not know," he is forgetting the interesting fact that there has hardly ever been a case of sickness healed in Christian Science, after the failure of the medical profession, the effect of which has not been belittled by the statement that the original diagnosis was a mistaken one.
It is to be regretted that a Christian clergyman with a reputation such as that enjoyed by this critic of Christian Science should deem it necessary, in his endeavor to build up his own conception of the Scriptures, to attempt to discredit other Christian beliefs.
The lawyer quoted in yesterday's Eagle says: "It is the duty of the community to prohibit the practice of medicine or healing by Christian Scientists and by all persons who are not properly qualified according to the common understanding.
There
is a negative holding-on, prompted by human will and self-interest, which we are very prone to mistake for the positive grasp, born of spiritual understanding and insight.
