IS IT IMAGINARY?

BY F. J. RYAN.

The sermon of Rev. J. E. Roberts, published in the October Journal, recalls what has been said here by opponents of Christian Science concerning several remarkable cases of healing through Science. First they say the illness was largely or wholly imaginary, and next that the cures are imaginary. In this little city (Stockton, Cal.) of twenty thousand inhabitants, at least forty persons who had suffered several years have been restored to health within a couple of years. Of this number about half were regarded as incurable, and many had spent large sums for doctors' services and medicines.

Take the arguments, or rather the assumptions, of these people as they are stated, and what is the logical deduction? It must be either that Christian Science so operates upon a diseased imagination as to dispel the delusion that its victim is ill, or that it operates to the converse, and supplants a reality of disease with a delusion of health. The first position seems much like unconsciously granting the claim of Science. The grant is not well made, and does not benefit the cause of Science much, but if examined by the thoughtful must be regarded as an admission that "there is something in it"—a phrase very often employed to express half belief.

Now if Christian Science can delude a person into the belief that he is in good health when he is really ill, if it can render him capable of resuming work at his regular occupation; restore his appetite; bring the color of youth to the cheek of middle age; put roundness upon the form reduced almost to a skeleton, and bring cheerfulness and happiness to "hearts bowed down with weight of woe," is it not a blessed delusion? If the ailments are imaginary and yet have defied medical science, as practised by some of the most progressive physicians, to discover their unreality, is not Christian Science a great boon to have dispelled the delusions?

But there is another and a more important view of these assertions of sceptics. It is, when reduced to its essence, that the human mind can accomplish, by delusion and by dispelling delusion, what the sceptics virtually assume is beyond the power of divine Mind. This is, in effect, attributing more power to man than to God; but those who employ these ostensible arguments do not perceive it until that view is turned upon them, when some take refuge in "offended dignity."

While I am not entitled to call myself a Christian Scientist, I have seen so many evidences of the efficacy of Science in healing disease that I cannot resist evidence that would have convinced even Thomas.

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