Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/821

Rh being unreal, can not feel or know anything, and hence can not be sick; and mind, being divine, is perfect, and hence can not be sick either. Therefore, there can be no sickness in anything, and what we call sickness is only a belief—not a belief of the one Divine Mind, but a belief of what she calls “mortal mind,” which is itself unreal. Hence, when the belief is destroyed, the disease is destroyed also. She deems this theory fully verified, because, proceeding in accordance with it, she states that she has “prevented disease, preserved and restored health, healed chronic as well as acute ailments in their severest forms, elongated shortened limbs, relaxed rigid muscles, restored decaying bones to healthy conditions, brought back the lost substance of the lungs, and caused them to resume their proper functions.” She asserts that sin is an error of similar nature with disease, and yields to similar treatment. “Healing the sick and reforming the sinner are one and the same thing in Christian Science.” Death also is all a mistake. The doctrine is set forth very fully in Mrs. Eddy's book, “Science and Health,” of which over thirty thousand copies have been sold. Many other books and pamphlets have been published by the Christian Scientists, and they issue a number of periodicals, the chief of which are: “The Christian Science Journal” and “The Mental Healing Monthly,” in Boston; “The International Magazine of Christian Science,” in New York; and “The Mental Science Magazine” and “The Christian Metaphysician,” in Chicago. In each of these cities there are several “schools,” “institutes,” and “universities” for the teaching of “Christian Science,” or “metaphysical healing," or the “science of spirit,” or “Christian pneumatopathy,” or essentially the same thing by some other name; and there are one or more such institutions in a number of other cities.

The two parts of the name “Christian Science” indicate that the doctrine has a mixed character. As to the genuineness of its Christianity, the doctors of divinity are best qualified to judge; the religious side of the subject lies outside the domain of science, and will not be treated here. I will only say that the garb of religion has often been a convenient cloak for fraud and delusion. But Mrs. Eddy calls her system of healing a science. If it really has the character of a science, it will endure all the tests that a genuine science will endure. If Christian Science is true, not only should cures always result when its precepts are followed, but, when a part of the theory is disregarded, failure should be sure to result. Any mental healer who tried to cure disease without denying that disease exists, or without denying that matter exists, or without asserting that all mind is one, should meet with discomfiture and defeat. In the case of a genuine scientific doctrine, such as the law of gravitation, any