In your issue of March 29 there was a lengthy report of...

Francis Lyster Jandron, Committee on Publication for the State of Michigan,—Benton Harbor

Palladium

In your issue of March 29 there was a lengthy report of an address by a doctor, in which this spokesman for the American Medical Association denounced Christian Science. It is hardly creditable to the representative of a profession which exalts honest and accurate research, that he should continue to repeat so many erroneous statements and worn-out legends about a religion which has won for itself an established place.

The facts about Christian Science and its Discoverer and Founder, Mary Baker Eddy, are easily ascertained. There are many intelligent people in Benton Harbor who can testify to the sincerity of Christian Scientists, to the efficacy of Christian Science, and to Mrs. Eddy's unselfish love for humanity and the purity of her life and motives. Some of them turned to Christian Science and were healed of organic as well as functional diseases after medical methods had failed to heal them.

Last week in our legislature at Lansing a senator read a quotation from a medical society journal in which were summarized the answers made by fifteen hundred people in a California city when asked what method of treatment they have recourse to in sickness. Only ten per cent named the school of healing which this doctor represents, and probably the other ninety per cent would not readily agree with his theory that every other mode of healing is quackery.

Although the doctor is a reputed medical authority he appears to be unable to distinguish between suggestion, mesmerism, and psychology, on the one hand, and Christian Science on the other. The former are based on a belief that there is intelligence in matter, and that it is subject to personal control. Christian Science teaches the allness and goodness of God, and rejects any supposed power of human will and any supposed existence of intelligence in matter. Christian Science affirms good and excludes evil.

The truth of the teachings of Christian Science is proved by their beneficial effects on the health, morals, and wellbeing of those who apply them. Christian Scientists are intelligent, law-abiding citizens. They are no less solicitous for the welfare of their children than are other parents. By their reliance upon God for help for themselves or their children, they do not ignore disease, not even to the extent that a medical practitioner must as he helplessly awaits some threatened crisis in a patient's condition. On the contrary, they overcome it scientifically by a clear realization of man's spiritual nature, and of his inseparable relationship to the divine Principle of health and integrity. In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy pointedly asks (p. 348): "Instead of tenaciously defending the supposed rights of disease, while complaining of the suffering disease brings, would it not be well to abandon the defence, especially when by so doing our own condition can be improved and that of other persons as well?"

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