Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/427

Rh and disregarded those uninspiring facts of which mortal mind must still take account. The more conservative and honest workers felt the bad effects of these extreme methods, and in the Journal of June, 1892, one healer writes:

All healers have some instantaneous cures, but if we mention only these, does it not imply that we have no lingering cases? I call to mind a lady Scientist who wanted to make an impression in a new field where she hoped to get business. After talking of the many wonderful cures which she had effected, she added that she herself was cured in three treatments of a lifelong malady. Now, while that was substantially correct, the shadows of her belief [symptoms of her illness] were not wholly effaced for over two years, and this was known to others in Science. Would it not have been better had the Scientist qualified her statement as to the time required?

Do not Scientists make a mistake in conveying the impression, or, what is the same thing, letting an impression go uncorrected, that those in Science are never sick, that they never have any ailments or troubles to contend with? There is no Scientist who at all times is wholly exempt from aches and pains or from trials of some kind. Neither pride of knowledge nor practice nor the good of the cause require that Scientists disguise or withhold these facts.

The question of the compensation which it was proper for the healer and teacher to receive was, from time to time, discussed in the Journal. At the various institutes and academies where Christian Science was taught, the charge for a term of lessons was from one to two hundred dollars. The healer's usual charge was a dollar a treatment, or daily treatments at five dollars a week.

One healer writes, May, 1890: "To allow the patient to decide the price would certainly be unselfish on the part of the healer. But such laxity might allow selfishness with the patient."

Another practitioner protests that the customary fee is too little: "It is a low plane of thought," he says, "that goes