New allies of the antiprohibition forces are trying to make...

The Christian Science Monitor

New allies of the antiprohibition forces are trying to make it appear that the Christian Scientists of the United States are divided on the liquor question. It is even asserted in glaring headlines that "Mary Baker Eddy Opposed Prohibition," and the effort is made thereby to mislead her followers. Mary Baker Eddy advocated prohibition before she discovered Christian Science. At Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1864, she became a member of the Independent Order of Good Templars, and soon became one of the officers and one of the speakers of the local lodge of this order. Long afterward other members and officers of this lodge recalled and related that Mrs. Eddy's part in its meetings always was noticeable as being dignified, courteous, effective, and impressive (The Life of Mary Baker Eddy, by Sibyl Wilbur, 1923 edition, p. 118).

When Mrs. Eddy joined the Good Templars, the platform of this order included the following planks: "Total abstinence from all intoxicating liquor as a beverage," and, "The absolute prohibition of the manufacture, importation, and sale of intoxicating liquors for such purposes." At that time, also, each of the lodges held a meeting every week, attended by both sexes, which provided "excellent education in parliamentary practice" and kept "constantly before the minds of members the principles of total abstinence and prohibition" (History of the Independent Order of Good Templars by the Rev. T. F. Parker (1881). p. 128).

As a Christian Scientist, Mrs. Eddy maintained the same position. Thus she said: "Whatever intoxicates a man, stultifies and causes him to degenerate physically and morally. Strong drink is unquestionably an evil, and evil cannot be used temperately: its slightest use is abuse; hence the only temperance is total abstinence" (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 288, 289). Moreover, it was part of her politics "to help support a righteous government" (Miscellany, p. 276). There is not a word in Mrs. Eddy's writings which can be fairly construed to indicate that she would have been in favor of modifying in any degree a constitution or law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating drink.

Among the Christian Science churches and their members there is to-day no doubt as to the position they should hold on this question. The chief executive authority of the church is the Board of Directors of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. This body, on the fifteenth of April last, adopted the following resolutions and caused them to be presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee:

Whereas, A determined effort is being made by the opponents of the prohibition law of the United States to invalidate the operation of that law and to legalize again the sale of intoxicating liquors in this country, be it

Resolved, By the Board of Directors of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, that as citizens and as Christian Scientists we do hereby pledge our hearty support to the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and to the federal enforcement law enacted under that Amendment; and be it further

Resolved, That we denounce the endeavor to repeal that Amendment, or to modify, in the direction of greater latitude, the Volstead Act as an effort to reestablish the traffic in alcoholic liquor, and as a menace to the industrial, economic, social, and moral welfare of the people of the United States.

The organization of the Christian Science church provides for complete local self-government. But with one accord the branch churches, and individual Christian Scientists, followed the action of the Board of Directors. On the day set aside for this purpose by the Senate Committee, resolutions upholding prohibition were duly presented from 283 Christian Science churches and 75 societies, together with telegrams from 506 individuals. Other hundreds of such communications, too late to get into the official record, have come to the Washington office of The Christian Science Monitor and are still coming. To date they number 615 from churches, 235 from societies, and 1200 from individuals. Not one official declaration from an authorized church hostile to prohibition can be cited.

Any effort to make it appear that there is dissension among Christian Scientists upon this issue is obviously misleading and must fail. The Discoverer of Christian Science, and Founder of this newspaper, wrote of the insidious effort of error to undermine law: "Certain elements in human nature would undermine the civic, social, and religious rights and laws of nations and peoples, striking at liberty, human rights, and self-government—and this, too, in the name of God, justice, and humanity!" (Message to The Mother Church for 1900, p. 10.)

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