Page:The Life of Mary Baker Eddy (Wilbur).djvu/438

388 which has ever been the policy of the Christian Science organization. The church responded loyally to the Leader's appeal, and at a meeting held in November reorganized its own board of trustees and accepted gratefully and lovingly the correction of error among its members.

Following this episode of church history Mrs. Eddy gave to the field valuable doctrinal instruction on two specific points, reprinting an excerpt of an address to the members of the Christian Science Association delivered in July, 1895, and also by replying to a letter of inquiry raised by a student in the West. The excerpt from her address, reprinted November 13, 1909, is as follows:

My address before the Christian Science Association has been misrepresented and evidently misunderstood by some students. The gist of the whole subject was, not to malpractise unwittingly. In order to be sure that one is not doing this he must avoid naming in his mental treatment any other individual but the patient whom he is treating, and practise only to heal. Any deviation from this direct rule is more or less dangerous. No mortal is infallible, — hence the Scripture, “Judge no man.” The rule of mental practise in Christian Science is strictly to handle no other mentality but the mind of your patient, and treat this mind to be Christly. Any departure from this golden rule is inadmissible. This mental practise includes and inculcates the commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” Animal magnetism, hypnotism, etc., are disarmed by the practitioner who excludes from his own consciousness, and that of his patients, all sense of realism of any other cause