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THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG science

acted as one having unique authority. Being unable to see that spirit can be both original and ultimate

and yet for all practical purposes mat3. Her ter may have the character and comTeaching. position which it appears for this earth-

ly while to have subject to laws which must be obeyed, she ventured to explain not how God actually works but how He ought in her judgment to work, and stilled in advance all criticism of what might appear to some as presumption with the announcement that she is not "apart from God," she moved on to the assertion that God does work as she described, that evolution both in matter and in spirit is but the explication of her theory of life. Historic Christianity she dismissed as summarily as science and philosophy. The Trinity was to Mrs. Eddy a variable and not a constant. Sometimes she assigned the third place in the Trinity to Christian Science; sometimes she kept it for herself. When she did not write that "the true Logos is demonstrably Christian Science" she was sure to say that "Jesus is the human man and Christ is the divine" and to allow one of her accredited teachers to teach that "Jesus of Nazareth is often mistaken for the real Christ." One of the Sacraments she abandoned altogether, putting in the place of the Lord's Supper a Galilean breakfast, and the other she evacuated of its historic meaning. Prayer she robbed of its petitional element and turned it into declaration of existing facts. To evil she denied all real existence and yet was obsessed habitually by what she called malicious animal magnetism which had all the attributes of the legendary devil except his horns and hoofs. In spite of these limitations and crudities, Mrs. Eddy won a following as obedient to her every wish as any modern army is to its commander. Convinced that Spirit is invincible and that "matter and mortal body are the illusions of human belief," she lived up to her convictions in the face of every jeer and joke. Insistent that "mind is all in all" and that "health is not a condition of matter but of mind," she would heal every ill that flesh is heir to by explaining to the seeming ill that things are not what they seem and-to quote one authorized to speak for her-"though the evidences of the senses may declare to the contrary we should still stick to the spiritual truth and should continue to denounce the false evidences." Broken bones and contagious diseases may appear a little stubborn because they have on their side a public opinion not yet permeated by the Christian Science spirit. Defer a while, said Mrs. Eddy, to public ill-informedness. The time will come when the limb lost in a railway accident may be replaced "as readily as the lobster's claw," and boards of health, she evidently thought, understand with her that contagion is "engendered solely by mortal belief."

Exactly what the therapeutic value of Christian Science is no one knows. The cures so widely advertised have never been subjected to any searching test which satisfies the trained pathologist. Judge Clifford P. Smith solemnly affirms that Christian Science has cured every kind of illness known to medicine, and Mrs. Eddy claimed to have added to the list the raising of the dead and the

causing of an apple blossom to unfold in January. Although the full measure of the efficacy of Christian Science healing is not known

4. Sugges- it is known that the principle of sug- tion as a gestion underlies the cure in every Basis. Christian Science case as in every other case of mental healing. The disavowal of the principle is either ignorance or fatuous policy. In no other cult has auto-suggestion proved so powerful. Through the complete isolation of the patient from all alien influences the suggestion in many instances amounts to hypnotism, which is nothing but suggestion narrowed and in conse quence profound. If Christian Science were to con fine its therapeutic activity to diseases in which -as practically all psychologists and pathologists agree to-day-there is proper place for it, much criticism of its therapeutic methods would promptly disappear. It is only the Christian Science dis regard of the distinction, which if not always evi dent yet is usually existent, between the organic and the functional in disease that causes disquiet and has led in some sections to active legislation to protect children, small and great, from the dan gers existing in a rapidly advancing civilization, which often experiments first, sometimes with disastrous consequences, and later formulates its theories.

The life-story of the founder of Christian Science has been told both by unfriendly and friendly hands, and the result has been to minimize her claims to sanctity. If the public is not inclined to-day to take the attitude of those who love

g. Pros- her best and, because they read no pacts. records save those she approves, know her least, it has no longer any disposi tion to deny that from the standpoint of achieve ment Mrs. Eddy stood alone among the women of the world. The mystery surrounding both the founder and the faith is gone. But the fact re mains that Mrs. Eddy and her followers identi fied themselves as have no other people in the world with the religious and the philosophical re volt against materialism, and if as years go by they prove wise enough to eliminate the tress and the crude, the foolish and the dangerous, and to profit by the criticism, not all of which has been ill-natured or disrespectful, which they have of late received, Christian Science may become a blessing to the world. LYMAN P. POWELL.

III. Critical View of the Doctrines: Christian Science, as a distinct cult, dates back to 1866, when Mrs. Mary Baker Grover Eddy formulated its teachings or principles into a system. In 1875 her book, Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures, was published and since then has been the recognized text-book of Christian Science, and is given a place side by side with the Bible. Mrs. Eddy claimed that forty-odd years ago she discovered " the Christ Science," which she named " Christian Science," and also that her book came to her as a direct revelation from God. This latter claim is made in the book itself and in many utterances of Mrs. Eddy and her followers. How definite this claim is may be learned from the following quotation from The Boston Herald, of Dec. 2, 1900, which appeared in