Page:Medicine and the church; being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick (IA medicinechurchbe00rhodiala).pdf/34

 There is nothing new in Christian Science except the colossal impudence of its pretensions. Mark Twain spoke in ignorance when he said:

'The Christian Scientist has taken a force which has been lying idle in every member of the human race since time began.'

We have shown that it was not left to Mrs. Eddy to discover this force, and that, so far from lying idle, it has been active in temples and churches, at shrines and tombs, for thousands of years. In one thing Christian Science has probably a unique record of achievement: beyond any sect or system that we know of it has succeeded in exploiting human imbecility and turning airy nothing into solid cash.

'Every false system of philosophy, of ethics, of morals, and of religion is floated on the vast ocean of conduct, of character, and of conviction by some element of truth. This corresponds to a water-tight compartment in a vessel which is in danger of being sunk, through dishonest contracts, imperfect mechanism, ignorant seamanship, or the stress and strain of storm. But for this compartment, the ship would disappear in the gurgling green of the ocean. In the moral Order, and in all our controversies, there is this unsink-*