Mr. Editor:— Your comment upon my late letter encourages further correspondence upon the signification of the two terms "absent treatment" and "claim" as used in Christian Science. My considerate regard for your space prompted me, when writing you before, to be brief, but now I will endeavor to outline more minutely my meaning, hoping to make clear to you and to your readers, if you will publish my letter, our use of these words.

Your position is in part a laudable one. Mrs. Eddy once wrote, "I respect that moral sense which is sufficiently strong to discern what it believes, and to say, if it must, 'I discredit Mind with having the power to heal.' This individual disbelieves in Mind-healing, and is consistent." (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 223). Her words would apply exactly to you now.

You have conceded that "Christian Science as a firm, calm belief in the teachings of Christ, may be efficacious in the curing of diseases of a nervous character," and state that "many diseases of this kind are largely or purely imaginary," and in this you have really concluded the argument; for there is no class of diseases which so generally baffles the "regular schools" as this. If Christian Science could do nothing more than release the hysterical and hypochondriacal, that alone were sufficient reason for its existence.

But you only claim that some of these diseases are imaginary. May I tell you that many such cases, which the broad-minded members of the medical fraternity regard as very real, are to-day being referred to us by them, and that they are as grateful as the patients when the latter are healed?

Then as to your next difficulty, "when it comes to broken bones, etc.," it is our present rule, often reiterated in the press, to refer broken bone cases to surgeons, and this by Mrs. Eddy's specific direction; while every issue of The Christian Science Journal and Sentinel, and each Wednesday night meeting of every Christian Science Church, affords testimonials of healing of all kinds and degrees of sickness and sin, which will bear investigation if doubted; or, I will furnish you names of persons treated absently and healed by Christian Science, if you care to take the trouble and expense of investigating them.

Here is one: A man well along in years had his foot injured, the injury so real that gangrene had set in, and the first joint of his great toe had disappeared. His attending physicians decided, and arranged, to amputate, first his toe, then his foot, and at last his leg; but finally concluded that he could live but a week at best, and they would better not operate. His case was then given over to Christian Science, and he was healed in 1898 and is sound to-day, I saw him last summer for the first time, and if you could have witnessed his greeting to me it would have cured your doubt, I am sure. He is a sturdy German farmer, and I have no doubt he will tell you the story himself, and that his family will corroborate it, if you go there; but don't write him; he is unlettered; go and let him tell you if you want evidence, then give your readers his story, and you will begin to believe in the practicability of "absent treatment." His name and address are at your disposal. Different evidence might be, even to your fair mind, but an instance of "absent work," and if thus convinced against your will, you might be of the same opinion still.

You are right about the hypothetical case of broken thigh bone, and I fully agree with you; it is "useless," and worse than useless, it would be injurious for him to try to imagine that "he is uninjured;" will-power too is literally of no avail, but such process would not be proposed nor pursued by a Christian Scientist. Did you think that was Christian Science? Well, you are mistaken, and there are others, but the number of them is growing less as the press helps us to set them right.

Now just a brief paragraph about the use of the word "claim." I was once in the railroad service. Our company maintained a high salaried official and an expensive office force and equipment, for no other purpose than to fight "claims." I recently heard a Congressman say that the Committee on Claims has the hardest time to secure recognition of any department in the government. Why, a claim is never worth the paper it is written on until it is allowed, and in Christian Science Mrs. Eddy is teaching us to disallow claims and we do not often have to "pay the uttermost farthing," though with our present limited understanding we do sometimes fail.

Believing, as you state, in the divine origin of Christ, what will you do with his declarations: "The works that I do shall he do also." "These signs shall follow them that believe."

Finally, "absent treatment" does signify the omnipresence of God, beautifully, effectively, because it is God—not the Christian Scientist—who heals; so you see "absent treatment" verily denotes that God is present not only here, but over yonder also, where claims of sickness, gangrene, and the like, hold sway until dissipated through the operative understanding that God, Mind, is everywhere present and all-powerful.

The doubts about the efficacy of Christian Science are probably as sincere as were the impressions of universal mankind that the earth was flat, and that the sun somehow got around it once in twenty-four hours, up to the time that Galileo made his discovery. Very few are so bitterly denunciatory as were the people who would have silenced the ancient discoverer of the earth's actual shape, but who did persecute him into a recantation; but the fact that the world has continued to rotate ever since Galileo discovered its rotundity, is prophetic of the change which may take place in the general views of Christian Science when the people become better acquainted with the facts.

I have seen it demonstrated, and must believe; that you have not seen it does not disprove the fact; your doubt is probably as honest as was John the Baptist's, but the same Saviour whom you quote said, "Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see," and I can do no less, no more. Yours sincerely,

George H. Kinter.
In Buffalo (N. Y.) Times.