Article July 10, 1909 Issue

In the course of an article in a recent issue of the Evening Mail,...

J. V. Dittemore

New York Mail

In the course of an article in a recent issue of the Evening Mail, "some of the best-known clergymen and physicians in America" are reported as expressing a fervent, disinterested, and dispassionate desire to rescue the unsuspecting public from the rapidly increasing inroads of Christian Science. The average layman must be somewhat bewildered by the widely divergent arguments of these gentlemen. While it is true that they express absolute unanimity, so far as their desire to discredity Christian Science is concerned, they seem to have used perfect freedom of thought in selecting the standpoint from which they advance to the attack.

By way of illustration: My attention was recently called to a criticism of Christian Science in the form of an editorial in a prominent Hebrew newspaper, in which the members of that faith were warned against Christian Science on account of its "being based on and in fulfilment of the teachings of Christ." On the same day there appeared an editorial in an influential orthodox religious journal, warning their readers that Christian Science "denied Christ, and was wholly unchristian and untrue." Not long after this one of our most distinguished physicians declared that the religious influence and teachings of Christian Science were beautiful and inspiring, but that as a therapeutic system it was a dangerous delusion and a snare, notwithstanding the fact that a few days before one of the best-known clergymen had lauded its healing work as true and in fulfilment of the Scriptural promises, but had uncompromisingly condemned its theology as "the work of the devil."

When those who appoint themselves critics of Christian Science learn to leaven their zeal to destroy with a very small quantity of exact knowledge of the subject, they will find that the vast army which is being raised up from among the sick and sinning is the inevitable result of a philosophy which, when understood, is the very essence of consistency, compassion, and love—of true Christianity; and that its ministry is destined to bring to all mankind a greater measure of the peace which passeth all human understanding.

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