Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/785

Rh of June her condition was so bad that her husband prevailed upon her to see a physician, who examined her and found her hopelessly ill with consumption. Another physician examined her and reached the same conclusion. She then turned "longingly and earnestly to the religion in which she had been brought up."

Two weeks after, she died, "asking the prayers of her co-religionists in behalf of herself, her husband, and her children."

Mrs. Eddy declares that she "healed consumption in its last stages, the lungs being mostly consumed"; that she "healed carious bones which could be dented with the finger"; and that she "healed in one visit a cancer that had so eaten the flesh of the neck as to expose the jugular vein so that it stood out like a cord."

Judge Hanna has published statements to the effect that "cancer, malignant tumors, consumption, broken bones, and broken tissues have been healed in Christian Science, without the assistance of any material means whatever." Mr. Carol Norton, a Christian-Science lecturer, has publicly announced that Christian Science has healed "locomotor ataxia, softening of the brain, paresis, tumor, Bright's disease, cancer," etc. And many other Christian Scientists have made like claims. Very well, then. Who are these people that have thus been cured? What are their names? Where do they live? How can they be found? Will Mrs. Eddy and her followers submit these cases for scientific examination? I and other investigators are asking, and have for years been asking, these questions, and we are all of us still waiting for answers.

The importance of all this is no doubt manifest. The healing of disease is, we are told, the outward and visible evidence upon which Christian Science expects to be judged and accepted. Therefore the cult must stand or fall upon the results of an investigation of the healer's claims. "By their fruits ye shall know them."

There are Christian Scientists who will say that these statements of Mrs. Eddy and her associates must be taken upon faith and as ipse dixit utterances. This is in the last degree silly. With such statements faith has absolutely nothing to do. They are solely matters for scientific inquiry.

Every Christian Scientist may be a healer. A little child may be a healer in Christian Science. The treatment is said to consist in thinking, speaking, and writing. It is declared that no material substances are used. The following oddity in mental processes is here to be noted: A healer told her patient to take a certain drug during her illness, and that she would then demonstrate the power of Christian Science over this drug.

The healer does not need to see his patient. He may, if he will, treat "absently," by a species of thought transference. He