The reference to Christian Science, in the address by Dr. Saleeby, printed in your issue of the 1st inst., is instinct with the fairness which has characterized every utterance of his upon the subject which I ever recollect to have seen. Christian Science has, of course, been through the usual deluge of abuse which human fear or stupidity rains on every new movement. It has, I believe, been my fate to read them all, from the breathless homiletics of Canon Eyton, in the Westminster Gazette, to the bloodcurdling utterances of Mr. Paget, hurled from the seclusion of the platform of diocesan congresses.

Out of the welter of this "hare-brained chatter of irresponsible frivolity," the voice of Dr. Saleeby has always sounded a note of strident common sense. I have a suspicion that he has even sometimes met a clergyman whose sermons have not invariably reformed sinners, and perhaps a doctor whose prescriptions have not always healed the sick; and having, as I am sure he has, a sense of humor, has been convulsed by the incongruous immodesty of two critics uniting to wage a "furious hating attack," in the name of Christianity, on Christian Science. Perhaps, too, he reads the papers, and remembers the case of the little shopkeeper recently sent to prison, in Bavaria, for wrapping a herring in a journal containing a picture of a saint.

Dr. Saleeby bears generous witness to the healing capacity of Christian Science. Still, though he has his quiet chuckle over the twentieth-century Johns of Gaddesden and Torquemadas, he says distinctly that Christian Sciencer is like medicine, only half a truth. What I imagine him to mean is that a judicious blending of mental and physical healing would constitute ideal medical practise. By mental treatment I think he means some form of mental suggestion. Now, I admit that you can mix ordinary medical practise with suggestion, though if you are wise you will not, but I deny that you can mix it with Christian Science. Why I say that you will not employ mental suggestion in any case if you are wise, is this. If mental suggestion can be used for supposed good, it can equally be used for deliberate evil. If it can be used openly, with the permission of the patient, it can as easily be used secretly, without the knowledge of the victim. In a word, it is the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and, as Jesus himself declared, you cannot gather grapes from thorns or figs from thistles; the supposititious good which occurs can only be a degree of evil.

Mental suggestion is as old as the human mind. It has its roots in those supposititious mental forces which were employed in the East for centuries, under such names as magic, necromancy, astrology, et hoc genus omne. The use of those methods was always considered illegitimate by the Jews, and though, after the return from the captivity, the peculiar form of mental suggestion known as exorcism became prevalent in Palestine, it was always frowned on publicly by the priesthood, no matter to what extent it might be winked at privately. This became abundantly clear when the Pharisees and the high priests were looking for a cause of offense against Jesus. They at once saw the opportunity of confusing the healing done by him with the healing of the exorcists, and they put their charges into the metaphorical language of the day when they declared, "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." The reply of Jesus settled the question of healing by suggestion as a Christian practise once and forever. "If," he said, "I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you." The kingdom of God never came upon any man by suggestion from a mind torn by human passions and believing now in good and now in evil. The kingdom of God comes to man exactly in the proportion in which he acquires the Mind which was in Christ Jesus, for the possession of the Mind of Christ frees man from a belief in the lie of evil.

In that terrific mental battle with the Jews, recorded in the eighth chapter of John, which ended in the attempt to stone him, Jesus referred once more to the belief in evil producing death, in a way that has generally escaped attention. "Ye are of your father the devil," he said, "and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." Speaking in a manner which would be quite intelligible to those he was addressing, he personified evil in a way strange and almost incomprehensible to western ears. Evil, Jesus said, was a murderer from the beginning, from the moment when the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil first brought death into the world. Yet, he added, the whole thing is a lie, which abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in it. Take away the imagery of the East, reduce the phrase to the matter-of-fact English of the twentieth century, and what does it amount to but this: In reality, the lie never existed, because there is no reality in it. This is the truth, and the truth in exposing the lie strips it of its claim to reality and power. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

Christian Science treatment is the very antithesis of the belief in evil. Insisting that material phenomena are merely the subjective conditions of mortal mind, it declares that any change in them can only be brought about mentally. This change, it teaches, if truly effected, is always effected spiritually; in other words, to make a man every whit whole, he must be made holy. Moral regeneration must proceed simultaneously with physical. This is why Jesus said, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?" In simple English, healing in Christian Science is wrought by showing how to "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." In accomplishing this, medical aid is bound to be more or less a deterrent, and can never be any assistance, since in teaching a man that the flesh profiteth nothing, not much is gained by assuring him that matter is something, while in insisting that Mind is all, it will not tend to success to make an exception in favor of physic. Christian Science, of course, must be prepared to stand by healing as the demonstration of the truth of its teaching. That was the demand made by Jesus, and that, consequently, must remain the test of a man's Christianity. It must, however, likewise remain the test of the efficiency of medical treatment. Christian Scientists do not draw any comparisons, but they certainly have no need to be afraid of any.