THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CRAZE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11650, 11 May 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE CRAZE.

MIRACLES AT ETOTTT SHILLINGS apiece.

Is' 1866 tin;- was only one Christian dentist in the world. That person was Mrs. Maty Baker C. Eddy. To-day there are. at least a million Christian Scientists in the United States alone. These facts speak for themselves. And the eloquence of their language is heightened by the point that one million are members of the shrewdest people on the face of the crib, and that the founder of 'he creed is an illiterate woman of the '"school-marm" iy>e.

What America invents to-day England imports to-morrow. And already there are signs that the chaotic cult of Mrs. Eddy is 'irmly establishing itself in this country. The mam feature of Scientific Christianity lies in the principle that pain does not exist, that it is. merely a delusion of the mind. ALL ONE PRICK.

The prophets of the science, of Metaphysical Healing—which is the stage-name of this latest brand of lunacy—-do, indeed, maintain that the curing of imaginary bodily ills is but a secondary part of their religion. But it is beyond question that the prospect of freedom from illness accounts for the great majority of their million converts. " Man is never sick : for Mind is not s.ck." says Mrs. Eddy, in her Monumental BibleAnnex," and matter cannot be."' This is unit the most- concise and hast cryptic statement to be found in the writings of this remarkable woman.

But it man have the misfortune to imagine that lie is sick, the payment of eight, shillings to a disciple of the authoress will cure, him of his delusion. For this very reasonable sum the most imaginative person can be cured of any ordinary complaint, from cold in the head to hereditary cancer. The charge is uniform. You may imagine that you have as many diseases us you like. You may run the whole gamut of internal troubles and have, them cured at a sitting. Christian Science is a sort of medical bankruptcy court. for the frail human form. You file your petition. The Scientist does the lest. Hence the. popularity of the system. THE DENTIST UNDER PROTEST.

Of course, the American criminal law takes a somewhat pessimistic view of the " healer." Scientists have even been accused of murder. But hitherto no one of them has had to undergo the instantaneous, though, no doubt, imaginary, pain of electrocution. This is as it should'be. The martyrdom of a Scientist would only boom the science. From a supreme sacrifice, it may safely be assumed that the healer would not shrink. With a minor evil, such as a troublesome tooth, the matter is different. Mrs. Eddy, for instance, though she is sceptical as to the pains of anybody else, shows a proper prudence in protecting herself even- against the (imaginary) anguish which she might feel from the extraction of a tooth (real). To adverse comments on the fact that she had "molars extracted under the so-called painless method by local anaesthesia, and now wears artificial dentures." she has replied: — '" Bishop Berkeley and I. agree that all is .Mind. Then, consistently with this premise, the conclusion is that if I employ a dental surgeon, and he believes that the extraction of a tooth is made easier by some application or means which he employs, and I object, to the employment of this means, I have turned the dentist's mental protest against myself, he thinks I must suffer because his method is interfered with. Therefore his mental force weighs against a. painless operation, whereas it should be put into the sumo scale as mine thus producing a painless operation as a logicaj result/' It is all just as lucid as that. But: is it sound sense? Nothing like it. Docs it explain Mrs. Eddy's position"' Not a bit. but it is a, representative example of Christian ; Scientific jargon. When people who talk and write in this semi-sane language get ! sufficient ascendency over patients to in- j duce them to dispense., with orthodox medical j assistance the result is alarming, it is a j danger to the community. ! 11T.IXDNKSS AND OTHER HARD FACTS. Here is a case. A young man who, in the opinion of two leading English oculists, suffered from a very dangerous affection of the eye, was compelled to wear black glasses. A somewhat sensitive person, he had a very deep objection to being a blot on the landscape, and was caught in the Christian! Scientific net. The healer told him that he should not wear glasses. On leaving her presence, he remarked that " everything looked brighter.'' He is now rapidly losing his sight, and within six months he will be stoma blind. This is the view of the un-Chris-tian and unscientific medical faculty. Still, the unhappy young man is convinced of its accuracy. Of course, lie was a tool. But the Christian Scientists do not practise to i any large extent among the conspicuously inI telligent. Blindness is a huge price to pay for eight shillings' worth of scientific felly. It is, however, on their treatment of persons suffering, or alleged to be suffering, from nervous diseases that the Scientific Christians chiefly plume themselves. But a nervous disease must he in a l nibly : developed condition for it to be. worth the sufferer's while to lie cured at the cost of the mental degeneration involved in conversion to this extraordinary cult.

One i< anxious to be perfectly fair to a creed which Las, at any rate, a. great financial future before it: but one hesitates to believe that the doctrine of Mrs. Mary Eddy can cure anyone except a- hypochondriac with a robust constitution.—Frank Richardson, in the Daily Med.

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