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"A Way That Seemeth Right." 
 
 Proverbs xvi., 25. 
 
 An Examination of 
 
 " Christian Science." 
 
 H. MARTYN HART, D.D. 
 
 Moderator and Medallist in Experimental and Natural Science, Trinity 
 
 College, Dublin. Author of "AManualof Chemistry," etc., and 
 
 Dean of St. John's Cathedral, Denver, Colorado. 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 JAMES POTT & CO., Publishers, 
 
 FOURTH AVEN0E AND TWENTY-SECOND STREET. 
 ,897. 
 
 w 
 
Copyright 1897 
 
 BY 
 
 J. W. HART 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the work of my ministry I have found so many 
 good people distressed by the specious seduction of 
 this novel cult, "Christian Science;" so many families 
 divided by it; so many dying persons sorely hindered 
 by it; so many professing to have found peace through 
 it ; so many charlatans robbing the sick of their 
 slender income by means of it, and so often have I 
 been appealed to for advice and explanation con- 
 cerning it; that I have, as a shepherd of the sheep, 
 attempted to set forth in this book the unscientific 
 nature of its pretensions, and at the same time to 
 point out the natural explanation of its cures. 
 
 I pray God that, in His Mercy, He may be pleased 
 so to bless this endeavor, that it may prove to those 
 who are ' weak in the faith ' a ' savour of life unto 
 life ' and an edification unto the Body of Christ. 
 
 H. MARTYN HART. 
 
 The Deanery, 
 Denver, January, 1897. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON HEALING. 
 
 Miraculous Cures. Freedom from Sickness. The Power of the 
 Devil. S. Paul's Infirmity of the Flesh. The Uses of Sick- 
 ness. King Hezekiah's Rebellion against the Word of the 
 Lord, and its Results. The Efficacy of Prayer. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON HEALING. 
 
 Lourdes. The Power of the Mind. Francis Schlatter and his 
 Cures. A Peculiar Case. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 MIND AND MATTER. 
 
 Control of the Mind over the Body. Charming away Warts. 
 Lord Bacon. The King's Evil. The Stigmata. Hypnotism. 
 Instances of Hypnotism. A Miraculous Cure in Moscow. 
 Influence of Personality. Cataract. Microbes. The Peculiar 
 People. A Wonderful Cure Investigated. "Christian Science" 
 Claims and Deeds. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 "christian science" HEALING. 
 
 The Subjective Mind. Instances of Its Working. Two Classes of 
 Ailments. Microbic Diseases. Nervous Derangements. Absent 
 Treatment. Effect of Sympathy. Communication between 
 Minds. Mind Reading. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 
 
 The Sermon on the Mount. The Way of Salvation. Statement 
 of "Christian Science." 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy's Meaning. Mortals and Mortal Minds the Creation 
 of the Wicked One. Good and Evil. The Senses. Accurate 
 Observation. Wickedness of Man. The Incarnation. The 
 Divine Life. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 The Ruler of this Dispensation. The Holy Ghost in the Bible : 
 in Mrs. Eddy's book. 
 
 CHAPTER VUI. 
 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 Value of Terms. A Definition of Adam. Mrs. Eddy on Spirit. 
 A False Syllogism. God is not all. Life and Spirit. Sub- 
 stance. The Substance of the Body. The Resurrection. 
 Body of Our Lord. Ether. The Vortex Theory. Ether and 
 Matter. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 The Gospel of Jesus Christ. Witnesses. The Christ Life. "Christian 
 Science" and the Removal of Sin. The Divine Nature. The 
 Teaching of "Christian Science" and the Gospel Contrasted. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 The Value of "Christian Science." The Truth in "Christian 
 Science.'' The Practice of "Christian Science" Healing, 
 Hypnotism and Therapeutics. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON HEALING. 
 
 IN February of this year, 1896, "The Christian 
 Scientists " of New York opened a building 
 which they had purchased for $75,000. This was the 
 occasion of a long article by one of their number in 
 " The New York Tribune " descriptive of the prog- 
 ress of the movement. The article said that already 
 the sect had three hundred churches in the United 
 States, and daily was increasing its number of adher- 
 ents; that the particular congregation in New York 
 was composed of eight hundred persons, all of whom 
 had been cured of diseases more or less severe ; and 
 the writer would point us to the facts of these and 
 similar cures as the corroboration of the theory upon 
 which the " Science " is based. This theory in its 
 present statement is due to a lady who says it was 
 revealed to her in 1865, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. 
 She stated the theory in her book, " Science and 
 Health, with Key to the Scriptures," which was pub- 
 lished in 1875, and has gone through more than one 
 hundred editions. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that so successful an 
 authoress should have many imitators. To-day there 
 are scores of books more or less diverging from the 
 first opinions of Mrs. Eddy, and scores of teachers 
 
2 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 propagating all sorts of phases of " The Science of 
 Spirit." Inasmuch as this professedly new revelation 
 points to its works of healing as the proofs of its 
 truth, it will be necessary to examine the question of 
 healing generally, if possible to discover if its effi- 
 cacy lies in any special theories, or in some principle 
 inherent in human nature. 
 
 We may at once divide the cures with which the 
 world is familiar into two classes — those which are 
 miraculous and those which are natural. By 
 " miraculous " is meant that the cure was due to the 
 interposition of a higher will, or by the employ- 
 ment of powers which exist, though generally 
 latent, in human beings, doing that which is not 
 done in the ordinary course of nature. We often 
 find it asserted that our Lord did his " mighty 
 works " by those powers which it was intended 
 humanity should possess, whereby the command of 
 God should be carried out, and we should " subdue 
 the earth. ' With the fall of man the sceptre of this 
 power fell from our grasp. Occasionally, here and 
 there, a man seemed to have recovered something of 
 it, and our Lord re-possessed it in its fullness, and 
 thereby worked his miracles. No doubt there is 
 some truth in this; but He Himself declared that the 
 Father had given Him works to do. "The Father 
 that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works" — John 
 xiv., lo. This is a plain statement that certain 
 miracles, which He was then referring to, were done 
 by the higher will interfering with the ordinary 
 course of nature, and this is what we call a miracle. 
 These works are always termed in the Greek " signs." 
 Signs of what? Signs that the doer of them was 
 
ON HEALING. 3 
 
 authorized by a power superior to the ordinary 
 course of nature. That these signs served their pur- 
 pose Nicodemus is a witness. " No man," said he, 
 "can do the miracles (signs) Thou doest except God 
 be with him." Our Lord Himself appealed to his 
 works in proof of the authority of his teaching: 
 " Believe me for the very works' sake" — John xiv., ii. 
 He endowed his Apostles, in the first instance, with 
 the same capability as He Himself possessed. As the 
 " Christian Scientists " have taken the words of his 
 commission as the motto around their seal, " Heal 
 the Sick, Raise the Dead, Cleanse the Lepers, Cast 
 out Demons," it is advisable to examine more closely 
 this authority. It occurs in the charge given by our 
 Lord to the Twelve Apostles, narrated in Matt, x., 6, 
 etc. He is sending them to the lost sheep of the 
 house of Israel. He forbids them to go into the way 
 of the Gentiles; in order that attention might be 
 gained for their message and their word be delivered 
 with authority. He endues them with power "to 
 heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast 
 out demons." It is clear that this power was a 
 special gift for a special purpose, made to special 
 men ; and unless it is asserted that the Lord in 
 this " charge " to his chosen twelve intended to address 
 through them all his followers of the centuries to 
 come — an assertion no one would make — it cannot 
 be maintained that we ordinary Christians can draw 
 from these words any authority whatever to "heal 
 the sick." 
 
 The only other reference in the Gospels to this 
 power is in the concluding paragraph of S. Mark's 
 Gospel. These would appear to be the very last 
 
4 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 words our Lord uttered just before his ascension. 
 He is speaking again to his Apostles, and He says : 
 " Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the 
 whole creation. He that believeth and is baptized 
 shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be con- 
 demned. And these signs shall follow (accompany) 
 them that believe. In my name they shall cast out 
 devils ; they shall speak with new tongues ; they shall 
 take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing 
 it shall in nowise hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
 the sick, and they shall recover." 
 
 The unbiased reader will at once conclude that 
 our Lord in this statement did not in any sense 
 declare that it was one of the prerogatives of his 
 followers to be free from sickness, or that it was one 
 of their duties in his name to "heal the sick." 
 These powers are still spoken of as extraordinary ; 
 they are still termed " signs ;" they stood as wit- 
 nesses to declare the Divine nature of the message of 
 the Gospel ; they were " to accompany those that 
 believed," in order to convince the world that salva- 
 tion had come. Before the canon of Scripture closed, 
 these signs were exhibited again and again. We 
 have no authorized record of any of the believers 
 drinking without harm a poisoned cup — a common 
 enough mode of murder in those days — but a legend 
 relates how the life of S. John was thus attempted 
 and how he escaped. S. Paul at Melita did shake off 
 the viper, which had fastened on his hand, into the 
 fire and took no harm, and what effect the " sign " 
 had on the islanders S. Luke tells us. And if anyone 
 still needs convincing that these powers were special 
 gifts, not for the benefit of believers themselves, but 
 
ON HEALING. 5 
 
 for the quicker spreading of the Gospel they were 
 charged to propagate, it is conclusively stated by 
 S. Paul in I. Cor. xiv., 22. Referring to the speaking 
 with new tongues, he writes: " Tongues are for a sign 
 not to them that believe, but to them that believe 
 not." That is, the gift was intended to attract the 
 outside world, and give reason, to those who listened, 
 to credit that the Gospel preached was not " of men, 
 but of God." It was, in fact, the very accomplish- 
 ment of what the Lord had promised, and what S. 
 Mark himself thirty years afterward, with the events 
 before him, stated in the final verse of his narrative : 
 " And they went forth and preached everywhere, the 
 Lord working with them and ratifying the Word by 
 means of accompanying signs." Mark xvi., 20. 
 
 That it was never intended that sickness should be 
 banished from our lives, while in this state of proba- 
 tion, but should be used, as all the other disabilities 
 of our present state, for purposes of discipline and 
 means by which we might forge our own characters, 
 is very evident from the teachings of the Word of 
 God. 
 
 We are told, and observation amply corroborates 
 the assertion, that the ruler of this world is that evil 
 potentate, that adversary of our souls, the Devil. 
 Our Blessed Lord called him " The Prince of this 
 World." The temptations which waylaid the path of 
 the Lord Himself are always ascribed to his malevo- 
 lence. At the entrance of his public ministry He is 
 led into the wilderness to be tempted of the Devil. 
 Matt, iv., I. He is assaulted by temptations which 
 were indicative of all " the contradictions of sin- 
 ners against Himself." In the natural commisera- 
 
6 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 tion of the chief Apostle, when the Lord revealed to 
 them how soon He must suffer, He heard the voice 
 of the Arch-Tempter, and said to Peter : " Get thee 
 behind me, Satan, for thou savourest not the things 
 that be of God, but of men." And when his be- 
 trayer, with the wine of the first sacrament upon his 
 lips, went out into the night, to make his proposal to 
 the Sanhedrim, the Evangelist records : " Now Satan 
 having put into the heart of Judas Iscariot to betray 
 him, he went out " — a corroboration of our Lord's own 
 words, that although He had chosen the twelve, one 
 of them was a devil. All through his career He 
 looked upon the opposition He met with and the 
 sorrows which oppressed people as due to "the envy 
 of the devil." Wisdom ii., 24. 
 
 To the head and front of the opposition, which 
 finally compassed his death. He said : " Ye are of 
 your father, the devil." In those days spirits of evil 
 gained access to men's souls, and disputed with the 
 man himself the governance of himself. These He 
 "cast out," " suffering them not to speak, for they 
 knew him." He even ascribed to their malevolence 
 those infirmities of the body which elicited his pity. 
 He said of the woman, the curvature of whose spine 
 was such that she " could in nowise straighten herself," 
 that it was Satan who had " bound her, lo! these 
 eighteen years." Luke xiii., 16. Death itself He 
 ascribed to satanic power. " I will forewarn you 
 whom ye shall fear. Fear him who, after he hath 
 killed the body, hath power to cast into hell : yea, I 
 say unto you, fear him." Luke xii., 5. 
 
 This terrible view of the condition of our life 
 might be conjectured from the fact that our Lord 
 
ON HEALING. 7 
 
 healed diseases and raised the dead. Because, if the 
 sick were afflicted according to the will of God, and 
 if it was the direct action of the will of God that 
 death should come, how could our Lord have re- 
 moved the sickness or recalled the dead ? He was 
 the only man ever on earth who never ran counter to 
 the will of God, and in that He did deliver the sick 
 and the dead it is a proof that they were not smitten 
 according to the will of God. It is, of course, true 
 that no sparrow can fall to the ground without His 
 high behest, but He allows the power of evil to act 
 within certain limits, that we may have that very dis- 
 cipline by which and through which we gain our 
 liberty. 
 
 A pertinent illustration of the relationship which 
 the Almighty Father is pleased to maintain with the 
 Prince of Evil is given to us in the matter of that 
 "infirmity of the flesh" which S. Paul describes as 
 "a messenger of Satan, sent to buffet him." It was 
 so poignant an affliction that the Apostle does not 
 style it "a thorn in the flesh," but "a stake in the 
 flesh." The iron entered into his soul, and to all 
 appearance woefully restrained his usefulness. 
 
 Now, S. Paul had in a pre-eminent degree the gift of 
 healing. So full was he of " virtue," that handkerchiefs 
 and aprons which had touched his body conveyed the 
 healing property to the sick and made them well — 
 Acts xix., II. But the great Apostle had a serious view 
 of the use of sickness, and so reverently did he regard 
 it that he declined to restore his damaged eyesight — 
 for this, no doubt, was his infirmity — himself. He 
 therefore tells his Corinthian converts, that he be- 
 sought the Lord thrice — II, Cor, xii., 7-10 — to heal 
 
8 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 his sickness, but the Divine assurance was, that it was 
 better for him to bear its burden ; that grace was 
 vouchsafed him to earn,- that cross. " My grace is 
 sufficient for thee," was the reply. Now, in this case, it 
 is unequivocalh- stated that his diseased eyes were 
 due to Satanic power, that this was permitted by 
 the Lord, who could have removed the infirmity, in 
 view of certain contingencies which might happen, 
 and which would be sadly detrimental to S. Paul 
 himself. Some of these he himself perceived. He 
 tells us that this affliction was allowed to keep him 
 humble, lest he " should be exalted above measure " 
 because of " the abundance of the revelations '" which 
 had been vouchsafed to him. Lest that pride, which 
 haunts us like our shadow, should arise within him 
 and debase his character, it was necessary, even for 
 him, that his weakness and dependence should be 
 continually forced upon him. Looking at the cir- 
 cumstances from our more distant point of view, we 
 can see many more advantages which accrued from 
 his sickness. The Galatian Church never would have 
 been founded. Gal. iv., ly, we never should have 
 had the Epistle to that Church; the intimacy between 
 S. Paul and S. Luke would never have existed; and 
 probably, therefore, we owe to the Apostle's sickness 
 the Gospel of S. Luke and the Acts of the Apostles; 
 and who shall say that the profundity of the Epistle 
 to the Romans, the depth and energy- of the Apostle's 
 thought, are not to be ascribed to the fact that he 
 was often obliged to sit in the dark, and being ever, 
 more or less, denied the wide sight of the outer 
 world, was compelled to turn the eye of his mind in 
 introspective view; and so learned to commune with 
 
ON HEALING. 9 
 
 himself. It was good for S. Paul, as it was for 
 David, that he was afflicted. 
 
 Before leaving the pages of the Book of Revelation 
 and examining the power of healing as illustrated in 
 secular history, we must refer to an example of the 
 fact that it is possible for the determined human will 
 to gain its desire, even although the answer to the 
 prayer has not the Divine approval. 
 
 It is quite possible, even probable, that S. Paul 
 could have healed himself, without applj'ing to the 
 Divine Counsellor. S. James leads us to conclude 
 that the famine in Israel and the demonstration on 
 Mount Carmel were the result of the stalwart faith 
 of Elijah, " a man of like passions as we are." Not 
 only did no good result come from his bringing force 
 to bear upon the multitude, but at Horeb God Him- 
 self taught his faithful servant that " it was not by 
 might, nor by power, but by my spirit,'' saith the 
 Lord, that men's minds and hearts are influenced. 
 The wind, the fire, the earthquake, had no effect on 
 the prophet himself. It was "the still small voice " 
 of a present personality which bowed him down; and 
 then the command came to him to cease to attempt 
 to move masses, but to deal personally with indi- 
 viduals — Jehu, Hazael, Elisha, 
 
 God has been pleased to place great honor on the 
 human will. To it has He committed the reception 
 of the gift of eternal life. With such puissance has 
 He invested it, that in its prerogative has He placed 
 the possession or the non-possession of the Holy 
 Ghost, the Lord and Life Giver. The will of man 
 can withstand the omnipotence of Almighty God. 
 Even the Lord of Lords cannot enter in and take 
 
10 A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT."' 
 
 possession of a man's heart unless the will of the 
 man open unto Him. I: is, therefore, not a thing 
 to be wondered at that, in deference to the will He 
 Himself has so honored, God does sometimes ac- 
 quiesce in that the consequences of which we cannot 
 call good. In other words, it is quite within the 
 capabilit}- of men to throw dawn the crosses He has 
 apportioned for them to bear, and rid themselves, by 
 sheer force of will or wealth of resource, of those 
 disabilities which, if borne ■with patience, would have 
 worked out for them an eternal weight of glory. Of 
 this we have a striking example given us in the 
 history of Hezekiah. 
 
 After a life of laiihfulness. and brilliant with 
 many signal instances of the favor of the Lord, the 
 great Prophet Isaiah is sent with a message to the 
 king: ■'Se; thine house in order, for thou shalt 
 die and not live." Had Hezekiah received this 
 direct word from God as a wonderful assurance of 
 his eternal safety, had he counted himself well rid of 
 this naughty world and now certain of passing into 
 Abraham's bosom, had he received the summons iov- 
 fuUy and committed his soul unto God as unto a 
 faithful creator, he would have departed in pyeace. 
 But instead of this, he " turned his face to the wall 
 and wept sore," and in an agony prayed that God 
 would spare his life and lengthen his days. While 
 still on his way. " in the midst of the city," before he 
 had reached his own house, Isaiah is commanded to 
 return to the palace to announce to the king that his 
 prayer was granted, and that God would add fifteen 
 years to his life. Perhaps we may venture to think 
 that the Lord, who " trieth the heart," knew that the 
 
ON HEALING. 11 
 
 discipline of life had done what it could for Hezekiah's 
 character, and that there were, in the future, occasions 
 of temptation likely to arise under whose strain his 
 faith would give way, so that it would be better for 
 him to be '' taken from the evil to come." Isaiah, 
 Ivii., I. It is significant that the trial of his faith, in 
 believing the truth of the reprieve, was remarkably 
 shortened, "' On the third day thou shall go up 
 unto the house of the Lord ;" and wonderfully sup- 
 ported by a sign from heaven, the Lord " brought 
 the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had 
 gone down in the dial of Ahaz." II. Kings 
 
 XX., II. 
 
 In a very short time the weak place in his character 
 was exposed. The writer of the Chronicles tells us 
 that '■ Hezekiah rendered not again according to the 
 benefit done unto him, for his heart was lifted up." 
 It was the natural rebound from the ever-present 
 thought of that fifteenth year. He said in his thanks- 
 giving prayer for his recovery: "I shall go softly all 
 my years, in the bitterness of my soul." Isaiah 
 xxxviii., 15. He was not the sort of man who could 
 brace his spirit to watch the sure approach of death, 
 not only with calmness, but with triumph. The fear 
 of death had evidently g^reat terror for him. There- 
 fore, bj' everjr device, he thrust from the sight of his 
 mind the unwelcome thought. This constant atti- 
 tude induced a sort of braggadocio, a devil-may- 
 care temperament, which is the other alternative in 
 the face of a great danger. Under such a pressure 
 a man is either softened or hardened. That Heze- 
 kiah might know himself it was that Berodach- 
 baladan. King of Babylon, was instigated to send to 
 
13 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 Jerusalem an embasage of princes, bearing con- 
 gratulations and a present. The ancient chronicler 
 puts it with graphic insight: " Howbeit in the busi- 
 ness of the ambassadors of the princes of Babylon, 
 who sent unto him to enquire of the wonder that was 
 done in the land, God left him to try him, that He 
 might know all that was in his heart." II. Chron- 
 icles xxxii., 31. 
 
 It is certainly a corroboration of this narrative that 
 Herodotus found that during the 11,000 years in 
 which the Egyptian priests said they had kept 
 meteorological records, they had noted that the sun 
 had twice gone backwards, which agrees with the 
 two occasions mentioned in the Old Testament. 
 
 It is clear that the king was not alone in his proud 
 attitude, but his court, and indeed the whole city, put 
 on airs. To give their visitors the impression th-at 
 they were a rich and mighty people they displayed 
 all their valuables and dilated on the great sign, to 
 intimate that even the very sun in heaven attended 
 to their wishes ; and in consequence we read that 
 " the wrath of the Lord came upon him and upon 
 Judah and Jerusalem." Not only might they have 
 escaped this calamity had their king been safe in 
 Paradise, but another serious event would never 
 have come to pass. In the third year after his re- 
 covery his son Manasseh was born. The fifteenth 
 year duly arrived, Hezekiah died, and Manasseh, at 
 the age of twelve, succeeded him. He reigned fifty- 
 five years. There was no species of wickedness he did 
 not revel in. He built altars to the host of heaven 
 in the very courts of the temple of the Lord. " He 
 made his son pass through the fire and observed 
 
ON HEALING. 13 
 
 times and used enchantments and dealt with fam- 
 iliar spirits and wizards ; he wrought much wicked- 
 ness in the sight of the Lord to provoke Him to 
 anger ; ... he seduced them to do more evil 
 than did the nations whom the Lord destroyed 
 before the children of Israel. Moreover, Manasseh 
 shed innocent blood very much, till he had filled 
 Jerusalem from one end to another." Can we 
 wonder that the Lord said He would bring " such 
 evil upon Jerusalem and Judah that whosoever 
 heareth of it, both his ears shall tingle "? — II. Kings 
 xxi., i6. And all this came upon them in natural 
 sequence, because a man would be rid of sickness 
 and would not acquiesce in the will of the Lord, that 
 it was time for him to die. 
 
 Every student of Christianity can cite instances 
 where the purely human will demanded of God the 
 recovery of some loved one, and the prayer, to 
 their bitter regret, was granted. Out of many 
 with which I am personally cognizant I cite 
 one. 
 
 Some connections of my own, wealthy people, 
 lived at Sydenham, near London. No children had 
 fallen to the household for several years, when a 
 baby boy was born, and appropriately christened 
 Benjamin. When two years old little Bennie was 
 seized with meningitis. The most eminent of the 
 London physicians were summoned, consultation 
 after consultation was held, but it was evident, even 
 to the non-medical eye, that the child must die, and 
 this was the verdict. An eminent ecclesiastic, now 
 gone to his rest, told me he was in the room. He 
 saw the mother, a woman of great piety, open the 
 
14 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 large Bible on the table, and finding the Lord's 
 promise in Mark xi., 24, " What things soever ye 
 desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, 
 and ye shall have them," kneeling down, she placed 
 her finger on the verse, and, to use his own words, 
 "The room literally shook with the vigor of her 
 demand for the life of her boy." 
 
 Her prayer was answered; the child did not die. 
 But he remained in the condition in which the dis- 
 ease had been arrested sixteen years ! For sixteen 
 years he lay, a baby in his cradle, and the intimates 
 of the household used to go into the nursery to see 
 " little Bennie." It was said he recognized his mother, 
 but gave no other sign of intelligence. At the end 
 of those long sixteen years the mother was glad and 
 thankful to have him go to the Father's home ! 
 
 It has ever appeared to reasonable people a strange 
 thing to deny to the God above us that power which 
 we ourselves possess. We can arrest the processes of 
 nature, and by our will interfere with what appear 
 universal laws. We walk upright, defiant of the law 
 of gravity. Then why should not either God's will, 
 if so He deem fit, or even man's will, if so capable, 
 avert in certain cases what appear to be sure conse- 
 quences ? After all, is it not merely the superimposi- 
 tion of a higher and more potent force? 
 
 The cure of sickness is lawful if the heart be in 
 willing subservience to the mind of God. We have 
 seen how dangerous it is to heal the sick without 
 reference to Him who alone knows what is in us and 
 what lies before us. Few people can doubt that the 
 power of will to hold us in health is one of the means 
 God has placed at our disposal to enable us to deal 
 
ON HEALING. 13 
 
 with the difficulties of life. But, like all other 
 powers, it is intrusted to us to use only for his 
 service and in his honor. 
 
 But to say that man's mission is to sweep out of his 
 path every disability, and that he has commission 
 from the IMaster to everywhere " heal the sick," is a 
 dangerous doctrine, and subversive of the very occa- 
 sion of our life. And its contradiction is positive, by 
 the failure in the majority of cases where it is at- 
 tempted by those who are so deluded as to believe it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 ON HEALING. 
 
 IT has naturally been the desire of every generation 
 to heal its sick. Sickness is not a pleasant 
 experience, and, as it not seldom leads to death, the 
 sympathies of the sick as well as those of their im- 
 mediate friends are keenly awakened, one and all, 
 from every consideration, are filled with anxiety to 
 see the sick one cured. 
 
 Nothing makes us realize the weakness of the 
 human arm more than an attack of sickness. The 
 disease holds its way, as a giant striding amongst 
 pigmies. Is it any wonder, then, that in every 
 generation men have obeyed the worshipping instinct 
 of our nature and appealed to the unseen power? 
 
 The wealth of the temples of the ancient world was 
 chiefly from votive offerings of those who believed 
 the god had cured them or theirs, of some ill to which 
 flesh is heir. Evidence could be gleaned from every 
 classic writer of sacred places famed in his time for 
 the healing properties they possessed. 
 
 Strabo records the marvelous reputation gained in 
 his day by a temple of the Egyptian god, Serapis, 
 which was situated at Canopus, and was reached 
 from Alexandria by canal. He says that eminent 
 persons from all parts of the world congregated 
 
ON HEALING. 17 
 
 there to be healed; that so great was the number of 
 pilgrims that the canal was filled with boats going 
 and returning. 
 
 There never was a shrine or holy well that had not 
 tales to tell of, and usually an assortment of crutches 
 and sticks to witness to, the cures performed by its 
 relic or its holy water. 
 
 In our day we have the truly wonderful sights at 
 Lourdes. A peasant girl declared the Blessed Virgin 
 had appeared to her. Her story was credited by 
 some, disbelieved by others. People went to see the 
 girl and the place, cures began to be effected, and 
 now there is a splendid church and its accompani- 
 ments ; and every year not only are great pilgrimages 
 organized, but " The White Train " passes through 
 France and collects on its way one thousand incur- 
 ables, who are attended by devotees of the highest 
 rank. Out of these one thousand, two hundred are 
 cured. There is no chicanery about this. A com- 
 mittee of medical men of all shades of opinions and 
 beliefs examine these cases before and after the use 
 of the water, and in numberless instances have ex- 
 pressed themselves satisfied of the genuineness of the 
 
 cure. 
 
 But does anybody believe that such cures establish 
 
 the reality of the existence of the gods of ancient 
 
 mythology? Or the genuineness of the relics of the 
 
 saints ? Or that the Blessed Virgin really did appear 
 
 to the French peasant girl ? Whatever the power of 
 
 the cure may be, it is evident that in these cases it 
 
 resided in the subjects themselves, and not in the 
 
 object of veneration. It was subjective, and not 
 
 objective. 
 
18 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 Before we attempt to illustrate the effect that the 
 mind has over our bodies, we must notice the case of 
 a healing power which is possessed by some persons. 
 S. Paul distinctly tells us that there is "a gift of 
 healing." Our Blessed Lord had it in its fullness. 
 " The whole multitude sought to touch Him ; for there 
 went virtue out of Him and healed them all " — Luke 
 vii., 19; and when the woman in the crowd touched the 
 hem of his garment, unknown to Him, He immediately 
 was cognizant of the craving touch, for He said: "I 
 perceive that virtue has gone out of me." How far 
 the Lord and his Apostles were endued with this 
 gift, and how far their works were the offspring of 
 " power from on high," it is impossible to say. But 
 there is no doubt whatever that, apart from religious 
 belief, or at least independent of it, many persons 
 have a force which is strengthening and health- 
 giving. There are clergymen of whom it is said that 
 the sick infants they baptize almost invariably re- 
 cover, and everyone knows of persons whose presence 
 in the sick-room is welcomed, and who, by a touch or 
 stroke of the hand, seem to revive the invalid. It is 
 the habit to ascribe to imagination, if not to imposi- 
 tion, the healings of men who in every generation 
 have gained celebrity for the cures they have 
 wrought; therefore there is little disposition to seri- 
 ously examine their claims. 
 
 Francis Schlatter is a case in point. In the fall of 
 last year he attracted in this city of Denver thou- 
 sands of persons, who passed before him for eight or 
 ten hours every day. Whatever may have been his 
 own religious belief, he made no exaction on the faith 
 of others, and of some of the cures he wrought it 
 
ON HEALING. 1& 
 
 must be admitted that the curative power came from 
 him, and was not excited in the patient. Let three 
 cases which came under my own observation suffice : 
 
 The cook of one of our oldest residents, in lifting 
 a piano eight years ago, ruptured herself. She 
 suifered many things of many physicians, and was 
 not cured. Often she was unable to work, and 
 although, of course, she wore a truss, was frequently 
 in great pain. Moreover, her eyesight became im- 
 paired. She could not see to thread a needle, and 
 could not even sew by gaslight. The second day 
 Schlatter was here she was in the long line which 
 approached him. She is a Swede, and, after the 
 manner of her countrywomen, very taciturn. She 
 never spoke to him, nor he to her. She heard what 
 he said to otners. He held her hand. She said as 
 he did so she felt she was cured. 
 
 On returning home she took off her truss. I saw 
 her six weeks afterward, and again in six months 
 To use her own words, she said she was "a well 
 woman." Moreover, her eyes regained their wonted 
 strength. She remained apparently in perfect health; 
 at least, she did her work without interruption, her 
 mistress tells me, until a little time ago she left to 
 revisit her native land. 
 
 Schlatter never would receive any remuneration, 
 although it was said as much as $500 was offered him 
 in one fee. 
 
 Now, contrast this with a parallel case. A lady in 
 my congregation is afflicted in the same way. Find- 
 ing she was not cured by ordinary treatment, she 
 was persuaded to consult a "Christian Science" 
 healer. This person, after many treatments, as- 
 
20 "A WAY 11 1 AT SEKMI'.Tll RIOHT." 
 
 siiicd licr she w:is nirt-d -- iiulccd, lliid "llic pain, llu- 
 luiiif), the (liscomfdil, wcio all \hv ilhisiinis ol 
 'morlal mind,' and had no lual i-xislciicc; she 
 might go home anddisraid IktIiuss." Whicii siic 
 foolishly (lid, and was only saved next day by pin- 
 longed MU'dical elToil from having lo nnch-igo (lie 
 opc'ration foi- sli'angnlaled hernia. She liad paid the 
 "seienlisl " $50. 
 
 Another (jmisciy similar case occnrrcd with an- 
 olhei' lady of my congregation. Siu- consnlled a 
 "healer," wholrcalcd lici every day loi' six weelis. 
 On leaving for h'lorida, the "("hiislian Scientist" 
 proposed to give her "alisent treatments" at the 
 same rate of cliargi!. Hut wiien on tlie train, at one 
 of the "set times," she, too, was on the point of des- 
 l)erate troul)le. The movements conscqnent on travel 
 had, of course, brought down the licrnia, and it 
 became strangidated, and it was only " r(-duced " at 
 the cost of great suffering. 
 
 lint to return to Schlat ter, (o show tiiat healings 
 are possible without any dependence on any theory 
 whalevcj-. I know a boy of ten, who had hi]) disease 
 for more than two years before Schlatter came. The 
 dist-ase so increased that the poor little fellow coidd 
 onlyli{;on the floor on his right side, so i)roppe(l by 
 pillows that he coidd not turn ovei- in his sleep, lb- 
 went to the healer, who told him that in two nmnths 
 it was (iod's will that he should be well, and from 
 that time he began rapidly lo ami-nd. A large lump 
 gathered, but painlessly. It then biokc, freely dis- 
 charged, and then the place permanently healed. 
 The boy has abandoned his crutches, and his leg, 
 though of course dclornicd, has no sign of disease 
 
OS HEAliNG. 21 
 
 about it; and it is a year since the " healer " was 
 here. 
 
 A tliird and last case is that of a Toang man I 
 have known ten year;. His digestion was so feeble 
 
 rhat at le-^Xi even the milk =-i bread he was 
 reduced to live npon, had to be removed by the 
 5C'~-c:: p'zmp "Ar-t-ever he was seized with a species 
 at CGcivuisijr. which he well describe'^ as "the blind 
 staggers." His father fcteing- the manag-er of one of 
 I -r chief daLv papers, and his mother most active 
 in all charirahie undertakings, he had every medical 
 au:enti'.3i% and in spire 'jf all en leavers he a-radnally 
 neared fciis grave. I often saw him, and he was a 
 catise <rf g-ea: ansiety to us all He went to see 
 5chia~er. ani from that h;ur he began to amend, 
 in a few weeks he ccuid eat anything-: his whole 
 svstem seemed chang-ed. 5o thankful was he that 
 he he-tante Sohlatter's attendant, and held the iiand- 
 kerrhiefs andcloths fcrt ng-ht to be blessed. 5th_itttr 
 pressed them between his hands f tr a few minntes, 
 and many persons whom I have questioned dedaied 
 that when a;iplied tj the body they reddened and 
 drew the skin as a mtistard p .aster wonld. When I 
 zrst heard this I derided the idea, or conceived it to 
 be antther iliastration of the power of mind over 
 bodv. E'-t both nty young' friend and his mother 
 have man— evidences 'jj give, which it is diSctiic to 
 gainsav. as t: the sing-ular effect which they both 
 eaicerienced themselves and witnes-sed on the persons 
 cf ether 'e-epie when these "" blessed" cloths were 
 apphed. 
 
 The eeneral ooinion of those who were intimately 
 cooceroed with this 5;ng^u.ar mian is that five per cent. 
 
32 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 of those who sought his aid were materially bene- 
 fited. He himself ascribed the cures to faith in God, 
 which he continually urged. His appearance, very 
 spiritual and distrait, greatly assisted the earnest- 
 ness of his appeal, and no doubt largely contributed 
 to the effect. 
 
 In the " British and Foreign Medical Review," 
 January, 1847, is given a series of cases communi- 
 cated by a naval surgeon of long standing. This 
 illustration of the astonishing effect of mind over 
 body will render credible the above instance of 
 Schlatter's success : 
 
 " A very intelligent officer had suffered for some 
 years from violent attacks of cramps in the stomach. 
 He had tried almost all the remedies usually recom- 
 mended for the relief of this distressing affection, 
 and for a short period prior to coming under my care 
 the trisnitrate of bismuth had been attended with the 
 best results. The attacks came on about once in 
 three weeks, or from that to a month, unless when 
 any unusual exposure brought them on more fre- 
 quently. As the bismuth had been useful it, of 
 course, was continued; but notwithstanding that it 
 was increased to the largest dose that its poisonous 
 qualities would justify, it soon lost its effect. Seda- 
 tives were again applied to ; but the relief afforded 
 by these was only partial, while their effect on the 
 general system was very prejudicial. On one occa- 
 sion, while greatly suffering from the effect of some 
 preparation of opium, given for the relief of these 
 spasms, he was told that on the next attack he would 
 be put under a medicine which was generally believed 
 to be most effective, but which was rarely used because 
 
ON HEALING. 23 
 
 of its dangerous qualities; but that, notwithstanding 
 these, it would be tried, provided he gave his assent. 
 This he did willingly. Accordingly, on the first 
 attack after this, a powder containing four grains of 
 ground biscuit was administered every seven minutes, 
 while the greatest anxiety was expressed (within the 
 hearing of the patient) lest too much should be given. 
 " The fourth dose caused an entire cessation of pain. 
 Half-drachm doses of bismuth had never procured 
 the same relief in less than three hours. For four 
 successive times did the same kind of attack recur, 
 and four times it was met by exactly the same remedy 
 with like success. After this he joined another ship." 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 MIND AND MATTER. 
 
 TURNING now to the control the mind has over 
 the body, we have within our reach a mass of 
 evidence which goes far to prove, that, thought of any 
 given bodily change tends to the actual production in the 
 body of the change that thought suggests. 
 
 This statement need not give us any great surprise, 
 if we consider that the body must be secreted by the 
 soul, if by soul we mean the human vitality be- 
 queathed to us by our parents. 
 
 Unless we are prepared to admit that the soul 
 gathers to itself and places in their proper position 
 particles of matter, thus building for itself an organ- 
 ism for its own habitation and for the transaction of 
 its business in this material world, unless we admit 
 that the soul thus constructs the body, how are we 
 to account for that family likeness which strangely 
 blends the characteristics of both father and mother? 
 The soul must have a form, and surely it is not 
 beyond our right to presume that, when disem- 
 bodied, we shall still retain our present appearance ? 
 We cannot admit that the body gives form to the soul. 
 It is evident that the soul determines the form of the 
 body, and, if so, then it is no wonder that the altera- 
 tion of the soul intimately affects the body. That it 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 25 
 
 does so is beyond question. Even after the body has 
 attained its full growth and the appearance of the 
 face has become fixed, let a change occur in the 
 nature of the man — let him become spiritually 
 minded, or even let him have his intelligence stimu- 
 lated, and everyone will mark his altered appear- 
 ance. We say he is a changed man. 
 
 It is not a mere alteration of muscular setting of 
 which the mind is capable. It will cause actual 
 change in the fabric of the body. A fright has been 
 known to whiten the hair ; a feeling will blanch or 
 will redden the face ; let anyone concentrate his 
 thought on the tip of any of his fingers, and it will 
 begin to tingle, because the blood is being drawn to 
 that spot. This important fact was noted by no less 
 a medical authority than John Hunter. He writes : 
 " I am confident that I can fix my attention to any 
 part until I have a sensation in that part." Anxiety 
 will take away appetite, which means that those 
 juices essential to digestion are arrested, and the 
 stomach, unprepared to receive food, intimates its 
 disinclination for it. On the other hand, a happy, 
 buoyant spirit is at once the cause and the effect of a 
 good digestion. 
 
 But there is a class of evidence which is more 
 inexplicable. Who of us has not in childhood 
 had our warts charmed away ? The modus operandi 
 of the charmer was always to make the occasion very 
 solemn; then the mind was adroitly drawn to the 
 obtrusive wart; it was to be rubbed with half an 
 onion, whose other moiety was to be buried in the 
 churchyard exactly one hour after sunset, or some 
 other mysterious treatment was prescribed, and the*- 
 
36 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 with the assurance that the wart would disappear 
 that day fortnight, the patient was dismissed; but 
 the mind had been riveted on that wart, and its 
 effect was to banish the intruder; and, what is more 
 curious, no one seems to have noticed the decay of 
 the wart, but suddenly it was found gone ! 
 
 On this curious, but very suggestive experience, 
 we have a narrative by no less a person than my 
 Lord Chancellor Bacon. " I had from childhood," 
 he says, " a wart upon one of my fingers; afterwards, 
 when I was about sixteen years old, being then in 
 Paris, there grew upon both my hands a number of 
 warts, at the least a hundred, in a month's space. 
 The English Ambassador's lady, who was a woman 
 far from superstitious, told me one day she would 
 help me away with my warts; whereupon she got a 
 piece of lard, with the skin on, and rubbed the warts 
 all over with the fat side, and among the rest that 
 wart I had had from my childhood; then she nailed the 
 piece of lard, with the fat towards the sun, upon a 
 post of her chamber window, which was to the south. 
 The success was that within five weeks' space all the 
 warts went away, and that wart I had so long en- 
 dured for company. But at the rest I did little 
 marvel, because they came in a short time and might 
 go away in a short time again; but the going away of 
 that which had stayed so long doth yet stick with 
 me." 
 
 It is very venturesome to suggest to such a man 
 that he had forgotten anything, but no doubt the 
 Ambassador's lady told him that as the sun melted 
 the lard so would the warts disappear! The boy's 
 mind was by many circumstances fixed on the warts, 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 27 
 
 the grand lady, the foreign city, the bit of lard, and 
 not improbably the evident association between 
 lard and Bacon. The " suggestion " worked, and the 
 warts vanished ! 
 
 In the time of the Stuarts, " touching for the 'King's 
 Evil'" was one of the regular duties of the king. 
 There must have been numerous cases where the 
 scrofula was actually removed, not by the touch of 
 the king's finger, but by the effect of the powerfully 
 directed mind to the affected gland. 
 
 There are on record some ninety cases of the 
 stigmata, the marks of the nails and the spear-thrust 
 in our Lord's body, appearing on persons deeply 
 religious. Many of these cases are established be- 
 yond question. 
 
 S. Francis Assissi, the founder of the Franciscan 
 Order of monks, was the first in whom the stigmata 
 were said to be visible, both before and after his 
 death. 
 
 In the next century, the fourteenth, the rival 
 order, the Dominicans, gloried in the exhibition by 
 S. Catherine of Sienna of the same marks; but there 
 must have been some doubts as to the reality of the 
 appearances, for in 1475 Pope Sixtus IV. published a 
 bull ordering the erasure of the stigmata from all the 
 pictures of S. Catherine. But, despite the infallibil- 
 ity of the Pope, this may not be taken as conclusive 
 evidence that this hysterical girl of twenty-three had 
 not the stigmata. The rivalry between the Francis- 
 cans and Dominicans was something indescribable, 
 and it is quite possible the bull of the Pope did not 
 altogether turn on the cogency of the evidence. 
 
 If later years had not supplied us with unquestion- 
 
38 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 able instances of marks on the skin coming at the in- 
 stigation of the will, abnormally directed, we might be 
 inclined to believe that the origin of the stigmata in 
 every case might be naturally accounted for, and not 
 seldom be traced to the act of the persons themselves. 
 Hysterical patients are singularly adroit, and will 
 inflict wounds upon themselves to induce that sym- 
 pathy for which they crave with more desperate 
 yearning than the toper for his dram. 
 
 An hysterical girl once confessed to me that she 
 herself had thrust a needle down to the bone in her 
 arm, in order that a doctor, she had leanings to, 
 might cut it out, and the rest of us have our sym- 
 pathy excited. This girl could cause hemorrhages 
 when she chose, and completely deceived some of our 
 best physicians. When she lost the power she used 
 carmine dye, and was of course discovered. 
 
 The reader is referred to the article on " Stigmatiz- 
 ation " in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where is given 
 the case of Louise Lateau, a peasant girl in Hainault, 
 upon whom the stigmata appeared in 1868. Her case 
 was investigated by Professor Lefebvre, of Louvain, 
 who was for fifteen years the physician of two lunatic 
 asylums, and therefore not likely to be deceived by an 
 hysterical girl, and he wrote an account of the phe- 
 nomenon, which was published at Louvain in 1870. 
 
 We have lately had revived interest in hypnotism, 
 the modern name for mesmerism. Many surgical 
 operations have been performed on favorable sub- 
 jects without pain when mesmerized. This is by no 
 means improbable, because it is evident that by mes- 
 merism the mind of the subject is diverted from the 
 ordinary channel of its operations, and by that curi- 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 29 
 
 ous control, at present called " suggestion," is so 
 intently fixed elsewhere that it gives no heed to 
 ordinary demands on its attention. That such a 
 mental condition is perfectly possible is amply 
 proved by the well-authenticated instances of sol- 
 diers being wounded during the awful excitement of 
 a battle, and never being conscious of the pain which 
 the passage of the bullet must have caused, only dis- 
 covering the wound after the action. 
 
 This peculiar mental phenomenon is the true 
 explanation of many of the cures of " Christian 
 Science." Mrs. Eddy, being quite aware that mes- 
 merism was a powerful rival to her claims, is un- 
 measured in her denunciation of it. Here is one, out 
 of many, of her onslaughts, that is so palpably the 
 writing of a frightened woman that it is impossible 
 to restrain a smile to see her volubly denounce and 
 yet at once admit the potency of her rival : 
 
 Mesmerism is the right hand of Humbug, and is either 
 delusion or fraud. When first teaching mental science I per- 
 mitted students to manipulate the head, ignorant that this could 
 harm or hinder the spiritual direction of thought. ... By 
 thorough examination I learned that manipulation hinders, 
 instead of helps, mental healing. It establishes a mesmeric 
 connection between patient and practitioner, and so gives the 
 latter more opportunity to influence the thoughts and actions of 
 the former in whatever direction he may choose, and some- 
 times with error instead of truth Mesmeric influ- 
 ence is not confined to manipulation, but is employed variously, 
 and becomes the subtle agent of the worst crimes that mortals 
 can commit. — "Science and Health," pp. 197-415, 74th Edition. 
 
 This is a real and dreadful power to reside in " the 
 right hand of Humbug!" This is no "imaginary 
 power." 
 
30 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 But if mesmerism can produce an actual alteration 
 of the skin, it can also cause material changes in 
 unseen organs, and put right that which has become 
 disordered. 
 
 In the proceedings of the Society for Psychical 
 Research, vol. vii., p. 339, quoted in a late number of 
 the "Popular Science Monthly " by Professor New- 
 bold, there are related several cases in which medical 
 men, by means of mesmeric suggestion, caused upon 
 the persons of their subjects marks and crosses to 
 appear and disappear at stated times. One of them. 
 Dr. Biggs, mesmerized his housemaid, and said to 
 her : " Now, listen attentively ; a cross is going to 
 appear on your right forearm and remain there until 
 I tell it to go away. Here is where it is to appear." 
 He then marked a cross with his forefinger on the 
 inner side of her right forearm. " Have you under- 
 stood what I said to you ?" The mesmerized girl 
 replied, " Yes." He then awakened her. For the 
 next two or three days she seemed sulky and out of 
 sorts, and would now and then rub her arm where 
 the cross was to appear. She said she did so because 
 there was an itching, although there was as yet no 
 appearance of irritation. He then mesmerized her 
 again and asked, " Do you recollect what I told you 
 the other day about the cross that is to appear on 
 your forearm ?" "Yes." " Will it appear ?" "Yes." 
 "When?" "In a few days." " Well, it must come 
 out in three days. Do you understand me ?" "Yes." 
 By the time appointed a dusky red cross made its 
 appearance. Never a word had been said to her 
 about the cross in her waking moments, and she 
 kept it as much as possible out of sight, but the end 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 31 
 
 of it could be occasionally seen below her sleeve. It 
 was often examined by putting her to sleep. Seeing 
 it one day the doctor said, " Why, Maria, what is the 
 matter with your arm ? Have you hurt it ? What 
 mark is this? Let me see. Pull up your sleeve." 
 She did so, with a slightly sulky, ashamed air. 
 "Why, it looks like a cross. Where did you get 
 this ?" " I don't know, sir." " How long has this 
 been on your arm?" "More than a month, sir." 
 " Have you felt anything ?" " No, sir ; only at one 
 time I had a great deal of itching and burning, and 
 a few days afterwards this mark came on my arm." 
 The cross continued many months after she had left 
 the doctor's service, and it only disappeared upon her 
 calling on her late master to remove it, which he did 
 by mesmerizing her and telling her, while asleep, that 
 the cross would disappear in a few days, which it did. 
 This capability of the mind, in the peculiar hyp- 
 notic state, of producing an actual alteration of the 
 flesh is no doubt the explanation of the appearance 
 of the stigmata. These persons, usually girls, of 
 the ninety cases recorded by Roman Catholic au- 
 thorities seventy-two were females and only eighteen 
 males, became by the contemplation of the crucifix 
 mesmerized. The one great idea upon their minds, 
 before they went into the hypnotic condition, was the 
 wounds of the Crucified One. The seclusion of their 
 lives; the one topic of their conversation; their en- 
 vironment, all contributed to direct and impress the 
 thought. The pardonable anxiety to be so honored 
 as "to bear in the body the marks of the Lord 
 Jesus," not a little stimulated by the notoriety which 
 the event would secure for themselves and their 
 
33 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 community, all tended to subscribe the conditions 
 essential for the effect, and so it came to pass. 
 
 The modus operandi of the " Christian Scientist'' 
 healer is to all intents and purposes that of the hyp- 
 notist. By the silence, the motionless sitting, the 
 subdued voice, the cabalistic sentences — for they are 
 senseless, and cannot excite the intelligence — the 
 mind is soothed; then the suggestion is given, and in 
 the denial of disease the repeated assertion of par- 
 ticular cure is pointedly made and impressed; thus 
 directed, the mind exercises its power, all too little 
 used, of stimulating nerval action, and so inducing in 
 the tissues the change which the thought desires. 
 This is probably the explanation of these cures. 
 
 This widespread belief seems to be the rebound of 
 the mind of humanity from that abject materialism 
 the first heralds of awakening science sought, half a 
 century ago, to impose upon us. It is possible to 
 gain a hearing now, for the effect of the unseen, and 
 to believe that there are causes of visible results 
 which lie beyond the pale of the tangible. Publica- 
 tions which only a few years ago would have refused 
 to notice any account of cures beyond the limits of 
 what they termed medical science, do so no longer. 
 
 The "British Medical Journal" of November i6, 
 1895, contains this account of a cure beyond the 
 explanation of the profession : 
 
 " A ' miraculous ' cure has recently occurred in 
 Moscow, where it has caused considerable excite- 
 ment. It is, perhaps, a more than usually interesting 
 instance, and therefore deserving of the permanent 
 record given to it by Professor Kozhevnikoff. . . . 
 The patient was a lecturer in the Moscow University. 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 88 
 
 He had suffered from a severe form of sycosis menti, 
 (eruption of the hair follicles on the chin) since 
 June, 1894. He had visited Vienna, Berlin, Buda- 
 Pesth, Kieff, and other places, seeking the best advice. 
 In April last he returned to Moscow. His chin was 
 then covered with a freshly suppurating eruption. 
 He now sought the advice of a 'wise woman,' who 
 was an attendant at the baths, and was in the habit 
 of giving herbs and 'simples ' to her clients. In this 
 case no such remedy was employed. He was told to 
 meet the woman next morning at five o'clock in the 
 Temple of the Saviour, the colossal church on the 
 Moskva River, which has been building all the cen- 
 tury and is yet incomplete, in memory of the famous 
 events of 1812. He came as told, and while he re- 
 mained a passive onlooker the woman prayed for 
 three or four minutes. The same thing was repeated 
 that evening, and again the following morning. But 
 in the meantime the eruption on his face had begun 
 to improve; the discharge ceased, the swelling sub- 
 sided, and in twenty-four hours scarcely a sign of the 
 disease was left. Such are the facts as given by the 
 patient himself, and confirmed by Professor Kozhev- 
 nikoff." 
 
 Some other details were added, showing that the 
 patient was of an impressionable, perhaps hysterical 
 temperament; that the woman used a cabalistic 
 prayer, which she would not reveal. The time, the 
 surroundings were all favorable, and the result was, 
 no doubt, due to the power of the mind, when pro- 
 perly directed, upon a body in a recipient condition. 
 
 This " force " is far more frequently put into use 
 than is recognized. Dr. Carpenter, in his " Nature 
 
84 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 and Man," has this paragraph: " Every medical man 
 of large experience is well aware how strongly the 
 patient's undoubting faith in the efficacy of a par- 
 ticular remedy or mode of treatment assists its 
 action; and when the doctor is himself animated by 
 such a faith he has the more power of exciting it in 
 others. A simple prediction, without any remedial 
 measure, will sometimes work its own fulfillment. 
 Thus Sir James Paget tells of a case in which he 
 strongly impressed upon a woman, having a slug- 
 gish, non-malignant tumor in the breast, that this 
 tumor would disperse within a month or six weeks; 
 and so it did. He perceived this patient's nature to 
 be one on which the assurance would act favorably, 
 and no one could more earnestly and effectively 
 enforce it. On the other hand, a fixed belief on the 
 part of the patient that a mortal disease has seized 
 upon the frame, or that a particular operation or 
 system of treatment will prove unsuccessful, seems 
 in numerous instances to have been the real occasion 
 of fatal result." 
 
 The mere presence of some medical men has a far 
 more curative effect than their prescriptions, because 
 of the impetus their strong personality gives to the 
 will of the patient, which beneficially reacts upon 
 that ever ready disposition of nature to repair damage 
 and restore to their proper working any disordered 
 functions. 
 
 The cases thus far cited are all of a kind which 
 it is conceivable that nerval energy might control. 
 The rupture of the Swedish cook may have been 
 partially mended by nature, for three membranes 
 must be torn before the actual rupture occurs, and 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 35 
 
 the impetus given to her nervous force by the expec- 
 tation engendered by her contact with the healer 
 and his surroundings may have greatly strengthened 
 and accelerated the healing process. 
 
 The recovery of the use of her eyesight is to be 
 certainly ascribed to the same cause. We hear 
 sometimes of persons being cured by this class of 
 healers of loss of sight. " The blind receive their 
 sight!" has often been the exulting cry of " Christian 
 Scientists " when lauding their cult as a new revela- 
 tion. Many apparent diseases of the eye are due to 
 lapse of nerval force. If we all lived long enough we 
 should probably all suffer from cataract, which is the 
 clouding of the crystalline lens. If the life has its 
 full vigor, the secretions which form that lens are 
 transparent, but if the controlling force becomes 
 enfeebled, then the deposited material is not clear, 
 the lens gradually becomes opaque, and we say a 
 cataract is formed. There is no evidence, however, 
 that the opaque lens ever has become again clear. 
 But sometimes the opaqueness may occur in the 
 cornea, the clear material which glazes the pupil. 
 This, by an unskilled doctor, is frequently confounded 
 with cataract, and this cloudiness does become 
 clear again by invigorating the constitution. It is 
 quite possible, therefore, to conceive this ailment 
 being removed by the impetus imparted by an awak- 
 ened will, under the application of the methods of 
 " Christian Science," or other similar modes of treat- 
 ment. So it is of deafness. All the apparatus of 
 hearing may be in perfect condition, but if the nerves 
 are lazy and decline to carry the impressions from 
 the ear to the brain, nothing is heard, and the person 
 
36 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 is deaf. But now let some impetus be supplied to 
 the flow of nerval force, and the deaf hear ! 
 
 The same sort of consideration may be applied 
 to rheumatism and dyspepsia, and many of those 
 ailments from which women suffer. In all these 
 cases there is no actual change in the construction of 
 the muscles or organs, but their normal action is 
 impeded either by the lack of some necessary secre- 
 tion, or, as in the case of rheumatism, by the want of 
 the removal of effete matter. In such cases will- 
 power and nerval stimulants may remove the dis- 
 ability and restore to health. We may call it nerval 
 force, or will-power, or what we like, but we all know 
 it is a veritable factor in maintaining the perfect 
 working of the body. 
 
 Of late years we have learned that many diseases 
 are due to the agency of life. Microbes infest us; they 
 float in the air; they inhabit, in whole colonies, dollar 
 bills; they congregate on our clothing; they are every- 
 where. Then why is it they do not so find residence 
 in all of us as to produce constant diseases? Several 
 persons are exposed to the same infection. Why is 
 it that only one of the number takes the disease ? 
 " Because the others were not susceptible," is the usual 
 answer. This probably is due to their nerval condi- 
 tion at the time. Experience has long shown that in 
 the morning hours, before the work of the day has 
 taxed the nerval energy, infection has less effect. 
 As medical students we were not allowed to visit the 
 fever wards unless quite well, and in the morning. 
 Then, if this be the case, anything which is liable to 
 nerve the constitution and render it braced and terse 
 is likely to reduce to a minimum the possibility of 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 37 
 
 taking disease, and this end is not a little gained 
 by the assurance that there is no disease to con- 
 tract, and that the possibility of infection does not 
 exist. 
 
 But this mental stimulant is by no means a specific; 
 it is only a preventative. And w^hen the microbes 
 have effected a lodgment in that particular gland or 
 locality where is to be found food upon which they 
 can thrive, then it is impossible to conceive how they 
 can be reached and killed. They must live their life, 
 and " bring forth fruit after their kind." Therefore, 
 when " Christian Scientists " and " divine healers," 
 etc., assert they can and have cured, say, cancer, the 
 statement is to be received with the gravest doubt. 
 In my ministerial work I have several times attended 
 to the Valley of the Shadow of Death some who have 
 died of cancer, who gave heed to these "seducing 
 spirits " and yielded themselves to the fallacious 
 teaching of these people, to their great and bitter 
 regret. Their time, their short time, was wasted, and 
 worse; their mind and heart were diverted from 
 holding on to Him who is our only help in time of 
 need; their spiritual sight was beclouded with a haze 
 of impersonality — a comfortless "all mind" or "infin- 
 ite spirit '' — and they found to their desperate sorrow 
 that they had lost sight of Him who alone saith, 
 "Come unto Me, and I will give you rest." "When 
 thou passest through the waters I will be with thee." 
 
 There have been also not a few who have brought 
 upon themselves very serious censure. They aban- 
 doned the known hope surgery and medical remedies 
 offer, and deliberately consigned those, whom they 
 loved, to a theory which cannot be proved, and, 
 
38 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 indeed, is continually disproved. Such people ought 
 not to be allowed so to tamper with the sick. In 
 older countries the law protects the helpless from 
 such harmful experiments, by either preventing those 
 who have not secured proper diplomas from profess- 
 ing to cure diseases, or else preventing those who 
 have the care of the helpless sick from declining to 
 call in medical assistance. 
 
 There are some deluded people in England who 
 call themselves " the peculiar people," whose belief is, 
 that prayer is all that is needed for the recovery of 
 the sick; and there may often be seen in the law 
 reports the account of the trial, and very proper im- 
 prisonment, of such persons, the law defending the 
 helpless, and rescuing them from being the subjects 
 of crude and contradictory theories; just as the law 
 there prevents the vivisection of animals in attempts 
 to verify mere guesses, or to substantiate some theory 
 which is ill-considered and contains no probability of 
 being true. 
 
 Turning from this class of disease to those ail- 
 ments caused by an actual displacement in the fabric 
 of the system, we find the numerous sects of 'mind 
 healers' at wide variance of opinion. 
 
 Mr. Henry Wood, who poses as the philosopher of 
 the " Christian Science " cult, and with whose every 
 sentence any educated person would be disposed to 
 cavil, either as to its form, or its diction, or the 
 opinion it expresses, roundly declares that when any 
 accident happens which breaks a bone or dislocates a 
 joint, the wise "Christian Scientist " will at once call 
 in medical aid. 
 
 Not so, Mrs. Eddy. She is by no means disposed 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 39 
 
 to allow that "divine man " is in any direction limited. 
 "Christian Science" (she says, p. 400) is always the most 
 skillful surgeon, but surgery is the branch of its healing which 
 will be last demonstrated. However, it is but just to say that 
 the author has already in her possession well-authenticated 
 records of the cure, by herself and her students, through mental 
 surgery alone, of dislocated joints and spinal vertebrae. 
 
 Politeness would forbid us to contradict a lady, 
 but we may venture to question "-the well-authenti- 
 cated." Nothing is more rare than to have " an 
 unvarnished tale," and nothing more difficult than to 
 wipe off the accretions of inaccuracy. If every story 
 of a cured disability was sifted to its source, it would 
 be soon apparent that none of these 'mind healers' 
 ever have or ever will restore to its place a dislocated 
 bone, or mend a fracture. 
 
 Dr. Buckley, in the March number of the " Cen- 
 tury " for 1887, gives the natural history of one of 
 these stories, and, as it is a sample of all the rest, I 
 quote it. It is thus narrated by the late W. E. Board- 
 man, who says the story was told him by Dr. CulHs. 
 Dr. Gordon has reproduced it in his " Mystery of 
 Healing." It would be difficult to find three better 
 men than these, each of them celebrated for personal 
 piety and for widespread evangelical influence; each 
 of them quite incapable of knowingly varying from 
 the exact truth, and yet see how all three assisted in 
 the production and the continuing of a wholly false 
 account. Here is the story, in the graphic telling of 
 Mr. Boardman, who apparently adopts the language 
 of the father: 
 
 "The children were jumping off from a bench, and 
 my little son fell and broke both bones of his arm below 
 
40 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.' 
 
 the elbcw. My brother, who is a pnnessor of surgen- 
 in the college at Chicago, was here on a visit. I 
 asked him to set and dress the arm. He did so. put 
 it in splints, bandages, and in a sling. The dear 
 child was ver\- patient, and went about without a 
 murmur all that day. 
 
 ■■ The next morning he came to me and said. ' Dear 
 papa, please take off these things ?' " Oh, no. my son; 
 j-ou will have to wear these five or six weeks before 
 it will be well.' "Why, papa, it is well," "Oh, no. 
 my dear child, that is impossible.' Why. papa, you 
 believe in prayer, don't you ?' " You know I do, my 
 son." 'Well, last night when I went to bed it hurt me 
 verv bad, and I asked Jesus to make it well.* 
 
 " I did not like to say a word to chill his faith. A 
 happy thought came. I said, " My dear child, your 
 uncle put the things on, and if they are taken off he 
 must do it.' .\way he went to his uncle, who told 
 him he would have to go as he was six or seven 
 weeks, and must be very patient. When the little 
 fellow told him Jesus had made him well he said, 
 'Pooh! pooh! nonsense,' and sent him away. The 
 next morning the poor boy came to me and pleaded 
 with so much sincerity and confidence that I more 
 than half believed, and went to my brother and said 
 to him, ' Had you not better undo his arm and let 
 him see for himself ? Then he will be satisfied. If you 
 do not, I fear, though he is very obedient, he may be 
 tempted to undo it himself, and then it may be worse 
 for him.* My brother yielded, and took off the band- 
 ages and the splints, and exclaimed, ' It is well, abso- 
 lutely well I' and hastened to the door to keep from 
 fainting."' 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 41 
 
 Now, if this were a narrative under the inspection 
 of " a higher critic," scanning it for signs of genuine- 
 ness, he would undoubtedly find many. 
 
 But the case was thoroughly investigated by Dr. 
 Lloyd, of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 
 "The Medical Record" for March 27. 1886, he pub- 
 lished a letter from the very child, now grown up and 
 a physician: 
 
 '• Dear Sir: 
 
 '■ The case you cite, when robbed of all its sen- 
 sational surroundings, is as follows: 
 
 "The child was a spoiled youngster, who would 
 have his own way, and when he had a. green stick frac- 
 ture of the forearm, and, having had it bandaged for 
 several days, concluded he would much prefer going 
 without a splint. To please the spoiled chUd the 
 splint was removed, and the arm carefullv adjusted 
 in a sling. As a matter of course, the bone soon 
 united, as is customary in children, and, being only 
 partially broken, of course all the sooner. This is the 
 miracle. 
 
 " Some nurse, or crank, or religious enthusiast, 
 ignorant of matters physiological and histological, 
 evidently started the story, and unfortunately my 
 name — for I am the party — is being circulated in 
 circles of faith curists, and is given the sort of 
 notoriety I do not crave. . . 
 
 " Very respectfully yours, 
 
 '■ Carl H. Reed." 
 
 Ex uno disce omnes I 
 
 Considering that the discoverer of this beneficent 
 revelation is a woman, and that by far the greater 
 number of its devotees are women, it would be 
 
12 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 strange, indeed, if that great trial of womanhood, 
 child-birth, were not to be dealt with. On p. 77, in 
 " Science and Health," Mrs. Eddy narrates a painless 
 labor she presided over in Lynn, Mass., in 1874, and 
 then, mirabile dictu! this great and pressing subject 
 is barely mentioned. In the index, indeed, there is 
 not a little reference under " Child-Birth," " Obstet- 
 rics," and " Parturition," but most of the page refer- 
 ences are the same, and the total result is sadly disap- 
 pointing. The whole desire of an expectant mother is 
 'to avoid pain, and here are all the crumbs of comfort, 
 the high priestess of a cult whose chief profession is 
 to banish pain, herself vouchsafes to her eager listen- 
 ers. On page 447, under the head of " Obstetrics," 
 we have : 
 
 Teacher and students should also be familiar with the 
 obstetrics taught by the science. 
 
 With this brave heading we may well imagine 
 many an anxious woman took heart, and with joyous 
 expectation read on, only to find, after yearning for 
 bread, Mrs. Eddy offers a stone ! 
 
 To attend properly the birth of the new child, or the Divine 
 idea, you should so detach mortal thought from its material 
 conceptions that the birth will be natural and safe. 
 
 Then follows some very cautious and mysterious 
 language. Mrs. Eddy takes great care not to promise 
 painlessness in the process, and she is much too 
 adroit to submit the truth of her theories to an 
 experimental test, such as must often and inevitably 
 occur to " Christian Science " women. She there- 
 fore lets one of them state a single experience of 
 more than twenty years ago, she herself avoiding any 
 assertion. Surely, during the time her book has 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 43 
 
 been multiplying to one hundred and five editions, 
 thousands have had the opportunity to learn how 
 their theories stood the test of that great trial. By 
 this time the evidence must have become such an 
 accumulated mass as to triumphantly declare the 
 truth of the "Christian Science" theories, if there 
 is any truth whatever in them. But where is it ? 
 There is none! or it would have been only too eagerly 
 forthcoming. Mrs. Eddy, in a late edition of her 
 book, evidently is dissatisfied with the testimony of 
 the mothers; her expectations are in the future; this 
 she states in a sentence of curious indefiniteness. If 
 a charlatan, convicted hopelessly of fraud, wants to 
 study a mode of verbiage under which to cover his 
 retreat, I commend him to this clever passage. It is 
 a continuation of what I have just quoted: 
 
 Through gathering new energies, an idea should injure none 
 of its useful surroundings in the travail of spiritual birth. It 
 should not have within it a single element of error, and should 
 remove properly whatever is offensive. Then would the new 
 idea, conceived and born of Truth and Love, be clad in white 
 garments. Its beginning will be meek, its growth sturdy, and 
 its maturity undecaying. When this new birth takes place, the 
 "Christian Science" infant is born of the Spirit, and can 
 cause the mother no more suffering. Thus it will always be 
 when Truth is allowed to fulfill her perfect work ! 
 
 This is the only utterance of the oracle in response 
 to the most imperative demand of womanhood; here 
 is the one case of all others where the " Christian 
 Science" theory might be expected to be worth some- 
 thing; and what is it ? A passage of such clever non- 
 committal as the priests of Delphi themselves might 
 well envy! 
 
 Oh ! ye disappointed mothers, will not your suffer- 
 
U "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 ings teach you to estimate the worth of this delusion, 
 and discard a teaching so utterly at variance with 
 your experiences ! 
 
 Occasionally the will may reduce the pain; but these 
 theories are not essential to mental determination, 
 and occasionally nature is so sympathetic that the 
 ordeal is passed with scarce inconvenience. The 
 other day, in this neighborhood, a doctor left a woman 
 a happy mother at two o'clock in the morning. He 
 returned at nine, to see if all was right. He took his 
 breakfast at the restaurant which she and her hus- 
 band kept, and he found that his patient had fried 
 the oysters ! 
 
 The practice of every medical man will furnish 
 similar instances; and if a votary of " Christian 
 Science " is so spared as to have a painless delivery, 
 then it was a combination of circumstances which 
 favored her, and she owed nothing whatever to ^Irs. 
 Eddy or her teachings. 
 
 Let anyone consult " The Influence of the Mind 
 Upon the Body," by Dr. Tuke, and he will there 
 find instances of almost every disease being cured by 
 the action of the mind — inflammatory rheumatism, 
 dropsy, and what was apparently a case of far-gone 
 consumption amongst the rest. 
 
 There is no evil that does not bring with it some 
 good; and if the delusion of this "Science" works 
 evil to many it may not be wholly useless if only 
 the attention of this generation is turned to the 
 power that mind, rightly directed, may exert over 
 disease. 
 
 To sum up, then, the conclusions pointed to by the 
 experiences we have cited. It may be safely held that 
 
MIND AND MATTER. 45 
 
 will-power has a very evident and decided con- 
 trol over the body; that God never intended his 
 people to have immunity from those ills to which 
 flesh is heir; but that sickness is to be treated, as all 
 the other disciplines of life, as a means of spiritual 
 education. The injunction of S. James that the sick 
 might call for the Elders of the Church, and have 
 them anoint the patient with oil and pray for re- 
 covery, was never intended as a substitute for medi- 
 cal treatment, but to supply that Godly dependence 
 which was never inculcated by physicians of that day 
 and seldom by their brethren of this generation. 
 The words of Jesus, the Son of Sirach, in Ecclesias- 
 ticus xxxviii., express, no doubt, the sentiments of 
 S. Paul and his friend, "the beloved Physician," as 
 the attachment of S. Luke to the great apostle indi- 
 cates in what light they held the words of S. James : 
 " Honor a physician with the honor due unto him, 
 for the uses ye may have of him: for the Lord hath 
 created him. For of the Most High cometh heal- 
 ing. . . . The Lord hath created medicines out of 
 the earth; and he that is wise will not abhor them. 
 Was not the water made sweet with wood, that the 
 virtue thereof might be known ? And He hath given 
 men skill, that He might be honored in his marvel- 
 lous works. With such doth He heal men and taketh 
 away their pains. . . . My son, in thy sickness be 
 not negligent. But pray unto the Lord, and He will 
 make thee whole. . . . Then give place to the phy- 
 sician, for the Lord hath created him: let him go not 
 from thee, for thou hast need of him. . . He that 
 sinneth before his Maker let him fall into the hand 
 of the physician" — and let all the people say. Amen. 
 
CHAPTER I\'. 
 
 •■ CHRISTIAN SCIENCE " HEALIXG. 
 
 IT is now be^nniag to be recognized that the 
 human mind is not one uniform and homo- 
 geneovis maciiine: it contains wheels within wheels. 
 To the close observer it becomes evident that parts 
 of the mind are capable of almost independent action. 
 I: is a common experience with men who are accus- 
 tomed to speaic in public that they are ccnscions 
 of two currents of thougiits. the lips pronouncing 
 the one. and the other part of the mind preparing 
 for what is to come next, or probably making some 
 observation connected with their audience which 
 shall modify their mode of address. We seem to be 
 arriving at the conclusion thaz beneath the active 
 surface of the mind there lies an inactive but recip- 
 ient mental piane. which has been called the * sub- 
 jective mind.' This mental departrcent appears to 
 receive involuntarily, whatever impression the senses 
 impart to it, and faithfully to retain them, although 
 what we may caii the active and observing depart- 
 ment of the mind may make no a::empt whatever 
 inteliigen:ly to understand, or to retain, the impres- 
 sions so made. 
 
 A very typical instance of this observation is 
 recorded by !Mr. Hudson in his '■ Phvsic Phenomena," 
 
"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 47 
 
 where it is related that a servant girl at Gottingen, 
 in the delirium of typhoid fever, uttered sentences 
 in Greek, Hebrew and Latin on theological subjects. 
 Many of these sentences were written down. The 
 history of the girl was traced by one of the attend- 
 ing physicians; and he found that she had once been 
 in the service of a learned Lutheran pastor, who was 
 in the habit of walking up and down a passage in 
 his house, a door from which opened into the kitchen 
 where the girl was working, and reading aloud from 
 the works of Greek and Latin fathers. The pastor 
 was dead, but he found his sister alive, who still 
 possessed his library; and his painstaking search was 
 rewarded by the discovery, in the favorite authors of 
 the deceased minister, of the actual sentences that the 
 girl had recited in her delirium. 
 
 The only way of accounting for this is to suppose 
 that the sounds which fell upon her ear, and could 
 have been of no possible interest to her, were faith- 
 fully registered as they had been received, by that 
 part of her mind which has been termed ' subjective; ' 
 and during the process of the disease, certain con- 
 ditions had been arrived at by which the contents 
 of that part of the mind were re-delivered to the 
 organs of speech, and without any mental effort 
 of her own she reproduced, with something of the 
 pomposity of voice in which they had been origin- 
 ally delivered to it, the very sentences, in unknown 
 tongues, which had reached her ears years before. 
 
 That this subjective mind does exist, and faithfully 
 retains all the impressions it has received, has fre- 
 quent evidence in the sudden recollection of a series 
 of events which apparently had been absolutely for- 
 
48 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 gotten. It is a common occurrence with persons on 
 the brink of sudden death, especially if they are 
 drowning, to declare that, with fearful rapidity, the 
 whole of their past lives, even to minute details, 
 passed in rapid panorama before their mental view. 
 
 If we admit the existence of this compartment of 
 the mind, we may have some explanation of the 
 facts of hypnotism. A well-known nerval specialist 
 tells me he has successfully treated certain dypso- 
 maniacs by hypnotizing them, and impressing upon 
 their subjective mind the fact that alcohol would 
 make them violently sick, which thereafter it invaria- 
 bly does. One of his patients lately, not having 
 touched strong drink for a year or more, attended 
 a public dinner. Of course he took no wine, but 
 in the sauce for the pudding at the end of the dinner 
 there was some rum; tasting of it, he hurriedly left 
 the table to carry out the " suggestion " made over a 
 year since. 
 
 This glimpse into the construction of the mind, and 
 the wonderful capacity of its ' subjective ' province, 
 will lend us no little aid in offering some explana- 
 tion of the numerous cures effected by "Christian 
 Science " and kindred beliefs. 
 
 A frequent experience of " Christian Science " 
 healing, which is triumphantly pointed to as proof 
 positive of the truth of the theory, is that a sufferer 
 was healed by the perusal of Mrs. Eddy's book, quite 
 apart from the influence of any healer, or the effect 
 of ' the sympathy of numbers ' in a community of 
 " Christian Scientists." The explanation of this 
 effect may not be far to seek. 
 
 It must be remembered that, speaking generally, 
 
"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 49 
 
 the ills to which flesh is commonly heir may be 
 divided into two classes. Those which are due to 
 the invasion of the body by foreign life, and those 
 which may be ascribed to disturbed nerval action. 
 Of the former, phthisis, pneumonia, diphtheria, can- 
 cer, typhoid, typhus and scarlet fevers, with some 
 other ailments, are now definitely known to be the 
 result of the disturbance due to the invasion of 
 certain localities by microbes. These organisms, 
 which are mostly of a vegetable nature, can be easily 
 seen and recognized under the microscope. Like 
 other orders of life, they have their day and genera- 
 tion. They breed profusely, and exhaust all the 
 nutriment they find in the gland they have invaded. 
 This gland the meanwhile is incapacitated for its 
 normal action, and the whole body, lacking that 
 which the injured gland should supply, is thrown 
 into disturbance. After the marauders have appro- 
 priated all they can get, they die for lack of supply, 
 then nature sets to work to repair the damage of 
 the raid, and the patient gradually recovers. 
 
 Of the number of the host of the invaders few 
 people have any conception. A young doctor, who 
 is given to this department of his profession, told 
 me the other day that he had caused one of his 
 patients to bring to him the sputa he had expec- 
 torated in the morning. By dividing it by weight, 
 and then counting the baccilli under the microscope 
 in a fractional part, he found that in the quantity 
 brought there could not be less than 5,500,000! 
 What must have been the number of the host 
 entrenched in the poor fellow's lungs! 
 
 It looks as impossible, as it is improbable, that any 
 
50 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 power of mind can kill these invaders directly, yet, 
 unless they can be either destroyed or incapacitated, 
 that disturbance we call fever must continue. This 
 class of diseases have not and cannot be cured by 
 "Christian Science," despite that it is frequently as- 
 serted that this is done. But it must be remembered 
 that nerval derangement, or that obstruction to the 
 normal tides of life we call congestion, may frequently 
 give rise to symptoms by which the unskillful eye is 
 deceived, and often the disease is called by the more 
 serious name, when a far less cause of disturbance 
 was really the ailment. 
 
 It is high time that State authorities defended the 
 public from the mischief done by " Christian Sci- 
 ence " healers, who are wholly ignorant of the causes 
 of the ailments of their 'patients.' 
 
 They ought not to be allowed to practice upon any 
 case, unless a medical opinion has first been obtained 
 as to the nature of the disease; and if the invalids are 
 found to be suffering from any of the class of dis- 
 eases of which we are speaking, they ought to be 
 handed over to properly authorized medical men. 
 
 In every community inflicted by this novel cult, 
 cases of life-long remorse can be told, of children 
 with scarlet and typhoid fever, whose lives were in 
 all probability wantonly sacrificed by the preposter- 
 ous assumption of the healer and the astounding 
 credulity of the parents. These heartbroken people 
 cling to the flimsy theory to which they committed 
 the life of their precious child with an agony of des- 
 peration; for if they ever come to doubt it, and discard 
 it, they must accuse themselves of the untimely death 
 of their innocent! 
 
"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 51 
 
 But the second class of ailments, which are chiefly 
 due to nerval derangement, are the legitimate quarry 
 of any set of practitioners who can bring to bear the 
 mind of the sufferer to set to rights the disorder. 
 
 Faith curers, mind healers, mesmeric healers, "Di- 
 vine Scientists," and "Christian Scientists" and com- 
 pany, can none of them do much harm, and often 
 great good, by their various treatments of this class 
 of ailments. If any cure be effected, it has nothing 
 to do with the truth or untruth of the particular 
 theory of the professor; it is simply that by his 
 methods the mind is directed to the trouble, and the 
 normal condition of the body is stimulated to reassert 
 itself. Success greatly, nay, often entirely, depends 
 upon the disposition of the mind of the patient, the 
 nerval susceptibility, and the strength of the expecta- 
 tion. If these be favorable, then a perusal of Mrs. 
 Eddy's book is no small mesmerizing condition. The 
 constant repetition of senseless sentences confuses 
 and benumbs the faculties of the active layer of the 
 mind, in which dwells the intelligence; the 'sub- 
 jective ■ mind beneath is strongly impressed with the 
 desired 'wholeness;' and it is the liberation, as it 
 were, of this mental power to see to the repair of the 
 damage, which really causes the cure. The vast mass 
 of those who are relieved are women, and there is a 
 sentence which is constantly being repeated by "Scien- 
 tists," which really is the confession of their own 
 secret consciousness, and which tells volumes of the 
 causes of their ailments. They assure their votaries 
 that ' sin must be removed,' and after the cure, ' that 
 they must go and sin no more,' which must be to no 
 small number very pertinent advice. 
 
52 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 That a mesmeric element enters into the process, I 
 saw curiously illustrated, when one of the lights of 
 the cult in denouncing Mrs. Cramer, the leader of the 
 opposition, " The Divine Healers," declared with the 
 utmost vigor, " She heals by mesmerism — by hyp- 
 notism." We easily discern our own faults in others. 
 
 We have still to supply some explanation of those 
 cures which are said to have been performed ' by ab- 
 sent treatment; ' that is, by the effect of one mind 
 upon another, either near or far off. 
 
 All things are possible, but this can only be 
 accepted as fact, after careful investigation of 
 several cases, and as yet I have never seen evi- 
 dence fifficient to warrant the belief that such cures 
 have been wrought. But if they have, then their ex- 
 planation must be sought for in the direction of that 
 mental sympathy, and even actual communion of 
 thought, which appears to exist between certain per- 
 sons, under certain conditions. This chapter would 
 expand to the size of a volume, to recount all the in- 
 stances within reach which go to prove that there 
 exists a subtle communication between some persons. 
 
 A physician tells me he has in his practice a family, 
 consisting now of the father and mother and three 
 children; that when each of these children came into 
 the world the father suffered pains which were syn- 
 chronous and equally severe as those of the mother! 
 
 Dr. Tuke, in his work on the effect of sympathy, 
 narrates the instance of a lady who was greatly at- 
 tached to a little child. The child, running through 
 a garden-gate towards her, had its ankle caught by 
 the iron gate closing quickly behind it. She felt a 
 sharp pain in her own ankle, and on reaching home 
 
"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 53 
 
 found it much swollen, and the mark of the gate, as if 
 it had crushed her own foot and not that of the 
 child. This much must suffice to indicate the close- 
 ness of the chain of sympathy which binds some 
 people into almost one. Everybody's experience can 
 furnish numerous similar instances. 
 
 That other condition, essential to the theory of 
 'absent treatment,' the communication of one mind 
 with another, is a much-debated question. But, per- 
 sonally, I am convinced that under advantageous 
 circumstances this, too, is possible. The requisite 
 conditions, however, are so seldom found in con- 
 junction that it almost precludes their general ap- 
 plication as an explanation of cure by ' absent treat- 
 ment' Still, the conditions do exist, and it is pos- 
 sible that one or two peculiarly advantageous 
 circumstances may have presented themselves, and, 
 under them, cures at a distance may have been 
 wrought; and the fame of these isolated instances 
 have given countenance to a host of dubious rela- 
 tives, who, if strictly examined, would turn out to be 
 either mistakes or impostures. 
 
 Out of many personal instances I shall only state 
 one, itself sufficient to prove the possibility. When 
 an undergraduate, spending my vacation in my 
 father's parish in a Yorkshire dale, there came to the 
 town a conjurer, Signor Barnado, a tall, imposing 
 man, with a black beard. Part of his entertainment 
 was the exhibition of a clairvoyant, who was in the 
 habit of cleverly describing articles given to the con- 
 jurer by the audience, or repeating sentences silently 
 recited by him. It was evident that all this could 
 not be done except upon the supposition that she 
 
54 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 could read his mind. I had a friend, a country gen- 
 tleman, then at his fishing box, some thirty miles 
 away at the side of a trout stream. I well knew the 
 room he sat in in the evening, and I wrote to him, 
 telling him to be examining his fly-book at 9 o'clock 
 next Tuesday evening. As the hour arrived I stood 
 up in the audience, and said to the conjurer: " I have 
 a friend thirty miles from here. I want to know 
 what he is doing and where he is." Barnado asked 
 me if I knew what he was about; I replied, I did. He 
 put the question to the blindfolded girl, and she 
 began to describe my friend to the life, his fresh face, 
 his blue-spotted silk necktie, his gold spectacles, the 
 mahogany furniture, the green-figured cloth on the 
 table, the fluted silver candlesticks; he was reading a 
 book. " What is it about ? " asked Barnado. " I 
 do not know," said the girl. " Turn to the title-page 
 and read it." " There is no title-page." Then sud- 
 denly, after a short pause, she said, " It's about fly- 
 fishing." 
 
 " Now," I said, "what is the name of the village ?" 
 Barnado asked me if I would tell him, and he would 
 stand near me, and away from the platform, but I 
 replied that I preferred not to do so. He then 
 asked the girl if she could tell, and after a moment 
 or two she rightly replied, " Pateley Bridge." 
 
 As this very interesting episode was in progress, I 
 found she was reading my mind. As I arranged the 
 furniture of the room, so she did ; as I pictured the 
 fluted silver candlesticks, so exactly she described 
 them; and if I had put on the end of my tongue that 
 my friend was fishing at Timbuctoo, she would have 
 said so. 
 
"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" HEALING. 55 
 
 I have always been thankful I had this experience 
 when I was a young man. For by its revelation I 
 have laid to rest the perturbed mind of many and 
 many a person, greatly disturbed by the pretended 
 revelation of some spiritualistic medium. 
 
 The 'communications' made by these people are 
 entirely picked out of the minds of their dupes, and 
 presented as messages from dead friends. 
 
 As I am writing this, I have seated in my study a 
 very intelligent Hindoo lady, and she corroborates 
 what I have always held, that the feats so often 
 ascribed to the occultism of the Hindoos, of seeing 
 men throw ropes into the air, and then swarming 
 up them; making tamarind trees grow at once before 
 your eyes, and all those marvellous ' tricks ' supposed 
 to be done by the ' adepts,' so beloved of Theoso- 
 phists, are all worked by hypnotism, by processes 
 she has never heard explained. Many of the by- 
 standers are hypnotized, and made, by adroit sugges- 
 tion, to believe they see things which are only sub- 
 jective and not objective; the creation of their own 
 thought, and not actual existences. 
 
 If, then, the human mind is capable of these im- 
 pressions, it is not stating an impossible suggestion 
 that the healing of maladies due to nerval derange- 
 ment is perfectly possible by the reading of Mrs. 
 Eddy's mesmerizing book, or even by the mental 
 suggestion of an absent healer, who usually puts her 
 patient en rapport with herself by arranging the hour 
 of the treatment. This hypnotic restraint of the 
 ' active ' mind sets free the ' subjective ' mind to 
 work, with its strange power, the ' suggestion ' im- 
 pressed upon it. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF " CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 
 
 A COUNTERFEIT dollar bill frequently passes 
 current, and as long as its falseness is unde- 
 tected it will purchase exactly as much as its legiti- 
 mate represe:-tative. The possessor of the bill is 
 quite satisfied with it. He rejoices in its possession, 
 and until an expert discovers the fraud, and he sud- 
 denly becomes aware that his money has vanished, 
 and he only possesses a piece of very dirty paper, 
 he builds his hopes upon it. He may be depending 
 upon it to defray a pressing liability. Imagine 
 his revulsion of feeling when, at the moment he 
 most needs it, it proves worthless, and leaves him 
 unable to pay his lawful debt, a hopeless bankrupt! 
 
 A no more momentous question can any one con- 
 sider, than, upon what his hopes for eternity are built. 
 Has he any certain assurance that when he closes his 
 eyes on this world, he will be with Jesus Christ and 
 his servants in Paradise, in the next world ? 
 
 In three chapters in S. Matthew's Gospel we have 
 preserved for us " The Sermon on the Mount." It is 
 the authoritative declaration by our Lord, wherein 
 his teaching differed from that inculcated by the 
 clergy of the day. A great many things they taught 
 with which He agreed; these He does not mention; 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 67 
 
 there is nothing here about public worship, although 
 it was his wont to attend, and probably regularly 
 attend, the Synagogue service. " Wist ye not," said 
 He to his anxious mother, " that I must be in my 
 Father's house ?" There is nothing here about offering 
 sacrifices and the ritual of ceremonial worship. And 
 yet He came not to destroy, but to fulfill the Law. 
 Those who flatter themselves that their " forsaking 
 the assembling of themselves together " finds sanc- 
 tion from the Sermon on the Mount are grievously 
 mistaken. This proclamation, together with the 
 undisputed requirements of the Law, common to the 
 teaching of our Lord and the Scribes, is an authori- 
 tative statement of the religion revealed in the Word 
 of God. This is the declaration by Him, who best 
 knew, how the men of the earth may enter the King- 
 dom of God. 
 
 At the end of his sermon he gathered the prin- 
 ciples he had been announcing and illustrating into 
 a practical application; and if we were not so familiar 
 with the words, they would take away our breath 
 every time we read them. He says : " Not everyone 
 that saith unto me. Lord, Lord, shall enter into the 
 Kingdom of Heaven, but he that doeth the will of 
 my Father, which is in heaven." 
 
 There are people who say that Jesus of Nazareth 
 never laid claim to Divinity; they surely never read 
 this passage. With what awful wonder must some of 
 those who heard Him that day have listened, as that 
 quiet-looking countryman, without any voluble assev- 
 eration, declared that He was the Judge of all the 
 earth ! 
 
 *' Many will say to Me in that day, Lord, Lord, 
 
58 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 have we not prophesied in thy name ? and in thy 
 name have cast out devils ? and in thy name have 
 done many wonderful works? 
 
 Then will I profess unto them, I never knew you; 
 depart from Me, ye that work iniquity." 
 
 There is little doubt that the presence of the last 
 word, "iniquity," has hitherto deprived this passage of 
 its vital moment. If " preaching in Christ's name " 
 and " casting out devils " and " doing many wonder- 
 ful works" be counted "iniquity," then the passage 
 cannot be worthy of serious attention, and so it is put 
 out of mind, as that with which we have no practical 
 concern. But " iniquity " is not the literal rendering 
 of the word, it really means " without law;" that 
 what they advanced as reasons for being admitted 
 into the habitations of the just were not accepted 
 because they were not done lawfully, they had not 
 the imprimatur of the right motive. This rendered 
 them counterfeit, and therefore worthless. So that, 
 to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ; to live to with- 
 stand and undo the " works of the devil," which 
 bring on mankind sorrow and sickness; to live so 
 unselfishly as to spend and be spent for others; to be 
 an energetic, successful, and liberal philanthropist; to 
 do what men call "good works," is of no avail, unless 
 all is done from a right motive. 
 
 The whole question turns on our personal know- 
 ledge of Jesus Christ. If we can say with S. Paul, " I 
 know Him whom I have believed," then and then 
 only shall we work with the right motive, the love of 
 personal service to a personal Master; without this, all 
 else is sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal — and 
 whatever may have been our experiences here, if we 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF " CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 59 
 
 know not the Lord, we shall learn our eternal doom 
 from the other side of the closed door: "I never knew 
 you, depart all ye that work unlawfully" — Matt, 
 vii., 23. 
 
 What we have to examine is, first, the works pro- 
 fessed to be done by " Christian Scientists ;" and then 
 whether the motives which prompted them are those 
 found described and illustrated in the Bible. 
 
 It is not with the smart pen of a controversialist 
 that I approach this difficult subject, but I would 
 rather ask my reader to believe I am concerned to 
 state in the best form the "Christian Science" posi- 
 tion, and with all loving anxiety to indicate where 
 the " unlawfulness " is to be found; the "unlawful- 
 ness" which proves the counterfeit, and jeopardizes 
 the salvation of many truth-seeking souls. 
 
 For the sake of perspicuity, as well as brevity, I 
 shall confine my examination to the text book of the 
 cult, " Science and Health, with Key to the Scrip- 
 tures," by Mary Baker G. Eddy, Boston, edition 74. 
 I restrict myself to this work, for all practical pur- 
 poses the statement of the " Science " is here suffi- 
 cient, and as I suppose from the following passage, 
 which it would be easy to support by a hundred 
 others, this book is the admitted and undisputed text 
 book of the Society. In the October, 1895, number of 
 the " Christian Science Journal," published by " The 
 Christian Science" Publishing Society, it is said: 
 
 Surely the people of the coming centuries will vie with each 
 other in doing homage to the Rev. Mary Baker Eddy, the 
 greatest character since the advent of Jesus the Christ, and her 
 book, "Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures," will go 
 down in history as a part of the sacred writings of the ages. 
 
60 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 This book is fondly called " The Little Book," in 
 allusion to that " little book " which the mighty- 
 angel in Revelations x., 8, had in his hand and gave 
 to the Divine Apostle to eat. (Page 538.) 
 
 For a statement of the works alleged to have been 
 done by "Christian Science" I quote from a tract 
 issued by the Boston authority. It exhibits the seal 
 of the Society, and its title is "Religious Eras;" this 
 is the description, " of course in part anticipative," 
 of the characteristics and results "of the religion 
 known by the name of ' Christian Science:' " 
 
 Suppose we had a religion we were glad to talk about whenever 
 and wherever we met; that should become to us an all-absorbing 
 theme; that should so interest us that, when we met together for 
 purposes of religious worship, we should be so full of brotherly 
 love and good-fellowship, so full of the fraternal feeling growing 
 out of our religious thought and association, that we should 
 feel loath to separate at the conclusion of the services, and 
 repair to our homes. Suppose that, as the result of our religion, 
 we should live for each other in a larger sense than we ever 
 before dreamed of; that all social follies and frivolities should 
 become so distasteful that, as a mere matter of choice, we 
 should no longer care to participate in them. 
 
 Suppose that this religion should enlarge our mental scope 
 and elevate our taste to one for a higher and better class of 
 literature; that it should bring us a single book which, with the 
 Bible, should become so useful and helpful to us in our every- 
 day life, that we should never tire of reading. Suppose that, 
 as the result of reading this book and the Scriptures in the new 
 light which it should give us, our natures should become so 
 transformed that we should lose all taste for gossip, all love 
 for idleness, all desire for unnecessary display; should lose so 
 much of self, that the keen desire to live only for money-getting 
 should pass away, until we could and would honestly say with 
 Agassiz : " I have no time to make money.'' 
 
 Suppose the reading of the littlq book to which I have 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 61 
 
 referred, should open our eyes to the fact that in all our past 
 life we have been living almost wholly for self; that, so selfish 
 had we been, we had brought misery not only upon ourselves 
 but upon those coming in contact with us in our daily lives. 
 Suppose it should open our eyes to the fact that we had been 
 all our lives envying our neighbor, coveting his possessions, 
 and wishing we could have as many good things, and enjoy 
 life as well as he. Suppose it should open our eyes to the fact 
 that we had been all our lives slaves to foolish and hurtful pas- 
 sions and appetites; that in all our past lives we had been the 
 victims of foolish fear — fear of this thing and fear of that, fear 
 of sickness and death, fear of lightning and tempest, fear for 
 our own safety and that of our friends, and especially of our 
 children. Suppose, as the result of understanding this little 
 book, we should awaken to the fact that our whole previous life 
 had been one prolonged nightmare of foolish and unnecessary 
 fear; that all the agony we had suffered in consequence was the 
 result of our ignorance of what true life and true religion are. 
 
 Suppose the little book should cause us to realize that much, 
 indeed nearly all, of the misery and unhappiness we had suf- 
 fered was the result of our own depraved will; that a part, and 
 very considerable part, of this depraved will was the result of 
 a foolish human pride — a pride as profitless as silly. Suppose 
 it should open our eyes to the fact that almost all the time, 
 often quite unconsciously to ourselves, as the result of this 
 depraved will, we had been in the habit of practicing deceit; 
 not only upon others, in ways that seemed harmless to them, 
 as well as in ways we knew might or would injure, but, in our 
 blindness, upon ourselves — flattering ourselves that we were 
 having great success therein. Suppose that the little book 
 startled us with the discovery that we had actually been the 
 victims of the most intense hatred — hatred of our neighbor, 
 hatred of ourselves — our own worst enemies; that it opened 
 our eyes to the fact that we had been so full of revenge, that 
 we had almost let the thought of murder get possession of us; 
 that we actually would have felt relieved for the moment if 
 some dire calamity had befallen the object of our hatred. 
 
 Suppose we should have this experience; and then suppose 
 
62 "AWAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 the little book should, after having laid bare our faults and 
 shortcomings, so work upon us that these things would become 
 so hideous and distasteful that we should of our own preference 
 set about overcoming them; and further, that the more we 
 strove in that direction the happier we should be, because our 
 striving now actually brought about results plainly perceptible to 
 ourselves and to our friends, so that even those who did not 
 believe in our religion could but notice and comment upon our 
 improved appearance and changed character. Suppose that the 
 understanding of this little book so opened our eyes to the truth, 
 beauty, and grandeur of the Bible, that, whereas it was before 
 an obscure and almost meaningless fable, it now became a great 
 light fresh from the hand of God, illuminating our heretofore 
 dull and weary pathway; that, in consequence, we breathed a 
 new atmosphere, saw with new eyes, heard with new ears, 
 walked with new limbs, talked with a new tongue, thought new 
 thoughts with a mind that had taken on a new vesture. 
 
 Suppose that, as the result of our understanding the little 
 book, we were brought into consciousness of a relationship with 
 God, of which we had never before been able to conceive; that 
 we realized a nearness to and a companionship with Him, that 
 seemed utterly beyond our grasp in the old conditions; until we 
 could, from our own experience, declare Him to be, in truth 
 and in fact. Omniscience, Omnipotence and Omnipresence — an 
 ever-present, practical Help in time of actual need. And, in 
 addition to all this, suppose that we should, as the result of 
 reading and understanding the little book, prove able not only 
 to heal ourselves of sickness, and afterward keep ourselves 
 free from attacks of sickness, but could heal our friends, and 
 aid them in keeping themselves free from disease. Suppose, as 
 the result of this kind of a religion, we were able to destroy in 
 people the appetite for intoxicating drink, for tobacco, for 
 gambling, for debauchery of every kind — in short, for all kinds 
 of foolish and hurtful expenditure of time and money. 
 
 Suppose that these things could be accomplished presently; 
 and that, beyond all this, we could see such mighty possibilities 
 for the uplifting and regeneration of the human race right here 
 on this plane of existence as poverty of language renders 
 impossible of expression, and finite sense impossible of con- 
 
THE DOCTRINE OF "CHRISTIAN SCIENCE." 63 
 
 ception. Suppose this, I say (and there are many other sup- 
 positions in which we might properly indulge, but time forbids), 
 and would not all unite in claiming this to be a true religion, 
 the religion that the world needs; a religion, indeed, " of the 
 people, for the people, and by the people ;" a fulfilling of 
 prophecy, and, in fact, the religion of Jesus Christ ? 
 
 This is, indeed, an entrancing and magnificent 
 description of the " new earth," and if only there was 
 anything of a hope "full of immortality," anything 
 about a "new heaven," we, too, should feel it "our 
 grand privilege and blessed work to spread this 
 precious new Gospel." But it is exactly here, where 
 most we need, that we have no teaching, no promise. 
 "The little book " is mentioned ten times, and twice 
 only, as if apologetically thrown in, is " with the 
 Scriptures." The Word of God, which alone has 
 brought " life and immortality " to mankind, is alto- 
 gether superseded by " the little book." Not a word 
 is said of Him who bringeth in righteousness, except 
 to assert that this " Christian Science " is the religion 
 of Jesus Christ. 
 
 Let us now search its text book, to learn the distin- 
 guishing marks of this Gospel, and see whether it be 
 the Gospel of Christ, which S. Paul preached ; or is it 
 " another gospel," and is it against the author of 
 " the little book " and others like her that the great 
 Apostle delivers himself so emphatically: "Though 
 we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other Gos- 
 pel unto you than that we have preached unto you, 
 let him be accursed " ? Gal. i., 8. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 A.S the object of this Gospel is the ameliorating 
 of the condition of man, let us first try to learn 
 what Mrs. Eddy would have us bdicvc man is. 
 
 Words in philosophic writing must have fixed 
 values. They are to the philosopher what numbers 
 are to the mathematician; if they do not bear the 
 same meaning in the same book, the work becomes 
 as worthless as if, in a mathematical treatise, the 
 symbols 3 and 5 and 7 were used indiscriminately. 
 This is a j^reat cause of indistinctness in Mrs. 
 Eddy's writings; she not only uses words to convey 
 other meanings than are commonly current, but con- 
 tinually the same word miist have another meaning 
 than that in which it was used on the previous page, 
 or the sentence is inexplicable. As she uses "man" 
 in two very different senses, it is very difficult to 
 understand her theory. Page 291, she says : 
 
 When man is gpoken of as made in God's image, it ii not 
 the sinful and sickly mortal man who is referred to, but the 
 ideal man, reflected as God's likeness. 
 
 We immediately suppose that " man," then, means 
 unfallen man, Adam before he sinned; but not so, for 
 she complains of some critic in this same paragraph 
 
MAN. 65 
 
 thai lie iDnfoumh man with AJam. Then " man," in 
 
 luT use, idt'is lo an ideal man. I'afji; 491 : 
 
 Mini Is the f:imily name for all the sons and daughters of 
 God. 
 
 'riicn, there are no sons and daugiUers of God in 
 reality, but the)' exist as " ideals." 
 
 It is I'videni that these hlessecl beings do not belong 
 to our life, foi- on page 198 she says : 
 
 riic scleiuo of HciiiK reveals man as perfect, even as the 
 Failicr Xa poifect, because (he soul, or mind of man, is God, 
 the Divine Principle of his HohiK, and the real man Is governed 
 by iliis soul, instead of sense ; by the law of spirit, and not of 
 matter. 
 
 It is nuite clear lioni this that "man" liere referred 
 to, is not swell as we are, for we all oat, and in this 
 are i;iwenied by sense, and if we did not eat we 
 should not be here. 
 
 Where, then, is this " man"? Is the ideal man 
 inside the man we know? It would appear so. And 
 it is the oHiee of "Christian Seience " to draw this 
 divine l)eiiii>- lo the surface, and make him take the 
 governance of our personality. Pai;e ^1(1 : 
 
 The Krcat spiritual f.ict must be brought out that man is, 
 not shall be, perfect and immortal. We must hold forever the 
 consciousness of existence, and sooner or Inter, aided by 
 '■Christian Science," we must master sin, disease, and death. 
 
 This means to say that within a human being is a 
 "man." This man is, indeed, the Deity Himself. 
 Page 154: 
 
 Mortals have a very feeble and Imperfect Idea of the 
 spiritual man and the Infinite range of his thoughts. To him 
 belongs eternal life. Never born and never dying, it Is an 
 Impossibility for Being, under the government of eternal sci- 
 ence, to fall from Its high estate. 
 
66 "AWAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 Page 461 : 
 
 Man is co-existent with God. 
 
 Page 459 : 
 
 Man is incapable of sin, sickness, and death, inasmuch as he 
 derives his essence from God, and possesses not a single original 
 or underived power. Hence the real man cannot depart from 
 holiness. Nor can God, by whom man was evolved, engender 
 the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's 
 man, for the offspring of God cannot be evil. Mortals are 
 man's counterfeits. They are the children of the Wicked One, 
 or the one evil, which declares that man begins as a material 
 embryo. 
 
 Mortals, then, are evidently men and women as we 
 see them. They are counterfeits of the real, divine 
 man, who is somewhere enshrouded in the human 
 being, and which it is the prerogative of " Christian 
 Science " to bring into evidence. But how did the 
 counterfeit come into existence? Mrs. Eddy tells us 
 that it is the child of the Wicked One. It will not 
 avail her to immediately obscure her statement by 
 defining the Wicked One to be " the one evil," for 
 "Wicked One" and "one evil " are by no stretch of 
 imagination the same thing ; the one is an Agent, 
 who begat the " Mortal," and the other is a quality; 
 and a quality can do nothing. But we are not left to 
 surmise what she means, for we are plainly told on 
 page 460 that 
 
 Mortals are not fallen children of God. They never had a 
 perfect state of Being, which may be subsequently regained. 
 They were, from the beginning of mortal history, conceived in 
 sin and brought forth in iniquity. 
 
 That is, by the Wicked One. 
 
 Mortals are material falsities. In the words of Paul, they are 
 "without hope and without God in the world." They are 
 
MAN. 67 
 
 errors made up of sin, sickness, and death, which must disap- 
 pear to give place to the facts which belong to immortal man. 
 
 Page 505 : 
 
 Could spirit evolve its opposite, matter, and give ability to 
 sin and suffering ? Does Mind, God, enter mat- 
 ter, to become there a mortal sinner, animated by the breath of 
 
 God? Man represents God; mankind represents 
 
 the Adamic race, and is a human, not a Divine creation. 
 
 What Mrs. Eddy wants to prove is quite clear. 
 Her idea is that man is the creation of God, and as 
 such a part of Himself, and therefore in reality pos- 
 sessing all that He is; perfect wholeness, goodness, 
 etc. She even, compelled by her theory, asserts that 
 he is " co-existent with God," that he is " never born," 
 and is " never dying," and in spite of her assertion on 
 page 464, that " Man is not God," this means that he 
 is "a partaker of the Divine nature," and is God! 
 
 But the experience of life exhibits man to be a 
 very different being. Uncivilized human nature is 
 the very antipodes of "goodness;" savages are very 
 devils; and all men are born and all men die. 
 Therefore, to accommodate her theory to the facts of 
 human life, she is compelled to assume the visible 
 man, who is too evidently wicked and feeble and 
 dying, to be not of " Divine creation." In the quotations 
 we have cited she ascribes his origin to two sources, 
 the " Wicked One " and " human creation." And 
 as her object is to deal and deal only with the divine 
 man, there is nothing left for her but to declare that 
 man, as we know him, is a phantom, an illusion, and 
 not real. She found support for this view in the fact 
 that this "mortal man," who must have a creator, for 
 it is out of the question for nothing to make some- 
 thing, cannot be brought into existence by God, 
 
68 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 '' good,'' " all-good." Therefore his existence is due 
 to one of the only two other agents she appears to 
 have heard of, "The Wicked One" and "man him- 
 self." But, as geology assures us that this planet 
 once was without life, there was a time when there 
 was not such a being as " mortal man;" hence there 
 is nothing for it but to allow that the origin of this 
 "material falsity," this " counterfeit of man," is the 
 work of " The Wicked One," and this marvellous 
 deception is only what is to be expected, seeing that 
 " he is the father of lies." The " mortal man," that is, 
 man as we see him, is, then, a very wonderful con- 
 struction of deception; he is a being who transacts 
 his business in the world, and apparently does as he 
 likes. There is in him an intelligence which regu- 
 lates his life, but this very intelligence is itself mar- 
 vellously adapted to carry out the grand deception — 
 an assumption which is essential to the working of 
 the theory. This intelligence is called " mortal mind." 
 We are told on page 40 that this " mortal mind " 
 is " the autocrat of the body." It " governs every 
 organ of the mortal body;" indeed, so intimately are 
 the two connected that (page 70) "mortal mind and 
 body are one." This "mortal mind " builds its own 
 body, which " from first to last is only a sensuous 
 belief," and upon which (page 401) it is constantly 
 producing the results of false belief; "this it accom- 
 plishes through the five physical senses," which (page 
 170) "are simply beliefs of mortal mind." 
 
 That is, that whatever appears to affect us which 
 would disturb our peace or our comfort is nothing 
 but the illusion of '' mortal mind " reaching us 
 through senses which it has purposely devised for 
 
MAN. 69 
 
 this shameful deception, and all we have to do is to 
 refuse to be deceived; to roundly assert that we are 
 under delusion, that there is no such thing as sin, 
 sickness, and death, and in time the real man within 
 us will shake off the nightmare that has seized us, 
 and we shall awake into the light and liberty of the 
 Kingdom of God, our true Father. It is the mission 
 of " Christian Science " to work out for us this salva- 
 tion. It is needless to say that this theory has no 
 support from any other source; that the common 
 sense of mankind derides it, and the continual death 
 and burial of " Christian Scientists " declare it with- 
 out foundation. 
 
 But it is time to compare the " Scientists' " theory 
 with the statements of their " text-book," the Word of 
 God, corroborated as they are by the experiences of 
 humanity. The Wisdom of Solomon ii., 23, 24, states 
 concisely what the rest of the Bible reveals: " God 
 created man to be immortal, and made him to be an 
 image of his own eternity. Nevertheless, through the 
 envy of the devil came death into the world; and 
 they that do hold of his side do find it." 
 
 It is unnecessary to multiply texts. S. Paul 
 declares, what is held by all spiritually enlightened 
 men, that " By one man sin entered into the world, 
 and death by sin," Rom. v., 12. The admission of 
 sin, which was the act of the unfettered will of our 
 first parents, vitiated our nature, and made man, not 
 what the " Scientists ' declare him to be, the offspring 
 of God, with his nature and prerogatives, but of a 
 nature similar to his tempter. Jesus Christ stated 
 it concisely, " Ye are of your father, the devil." Man 
 fell from the condition which he was first created to 
 
70 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 maintain, and he became wholly sinful. Any sin 
 completely destroys holiness. He once was pro- 
 nounced by his Maker to be "very good," but after 
 his disobedience that same Maker declared that 
 " every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was 
 only evil continually," Gen. vi., 5. 
 
 Mrs. Eddy is constantly declaring that as God is 
 omnipotent He cannot be withstood of evil; that, in 
 truth, there cannot be any evil to withstand Him; and 
 yet she asks us to believe that " Man," himself a very 
 part of God, is enveloped by a phantom form, the 
 cunning device of the Wicked One, and in this 
 " material falsity " is caused to reside all those delu- 
 sions and " mortal beliefs " which make the passage 
 of this life little else than a 'Vale of Tears.' How 
 can this be credited ? Surely the Divine Being could 
 not be thus restrained, and especially by that which, 
 at least He must know, has no reality. 
 
 Not a few of Mrs. Eddy's followers have felt the 
 impossibility of this assumption, and therefore 
 " there was a division among them," which Scrip- 
 tural assertion they may possibly construe to give 
 warrant for the establishment of " Centres of Divine 
 Healing." The one in Denver, which was dedicated 
 by the Western prophetess of the " Science," Mrs. 
 Cramer, of San Francisco, is out of harmony with 
 the "Church of Christ (Scientist)." She has put forth 
 a book, " Lessons in Science and Healing," and has 
 proved herself such an adept at mystic writing that 
 she and her husband issue the most credited magazine 
 of the cult, " Harmony." 
 
 On page 20 of this we read- 
 
 "There is one God and Father of all, Who is above all, 
 
MAN. 71 
 
 and through all, and in you all." — Eph. iv., 6. The limitless 
 goodness is uncreate Being. This excludes the possibility of 
 there being another life, substance or power. There are no 
 powers that are not good, "for the powers that be are ordained 
 of God." 
 
 A belief in two powers, one Good and the other Evil, one 
 warring against the other, and a belief that matter is life, and 
 has powers and laws that are opposed to infinite spirit, is the 
 division which causes all desolation. The belief that we have 
 a lower and higher nature, one warring with the other, or that 
 we have a lower self and a higher self, each striving to rule, is 
 a house divided against itself. This belief has brought desola- 
 tion, division and delusion upon humanity Igno- 
 rance, or the lack of understanding in expression, is the source 
 of the erroneous race belief in two powers, for this belief is 
 judgment rendered on authority of what the senses reveal — 
 intellectual reasoning. And just the opposite of the testimony 
 of the senses is Divine Truth. 
 
 Mrs. Cramer is more cautious than Mrs. Eddy. 
 She ventures on no hypothesis how it comes to pass 
 that we have been invested with senses for the ex- 
 press purpose of deceiving us; she is content to make 
 the assertion, and thereafter keep clear of an obscure 
 and disagreeable subject. 
 
 But this is the common belief of all " Scientists," 
 that the testimony of the senses is contrary to the 
 fact of divine wholeness, which must be the condition 
 of the real man; that it is only necessary to shake off 
 this delusion, and the true state of absolute perfec- 
 tion will be enjoyed. It is not worth while to point 
 to the anatomy of the organs of sense, and indicate 
 the similarity of their contrivances to the correspond- 
 ing organs in animals; and to point to the patent fact 
 that they serve us in the same manner as they serve 
 the animals, who have no divine nature to shroud in 
 
73 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 delusion. But, inasmuch as even " Scientists " admit 
 that Jesus Christ is the Truth; indeed, Mrs. Eddy 
 declares that " the coming of Christ was the appear- 
 ance of Truth," He was " the highest human con- 
 cept of a perfect man . . . the divine idea of 
 God, outside of the flesh;" then surely He must have 
 been aware of the illusion practiced by the senses; 
 yet He drops no hint of their faithlessness. Nay, he 
 always appeals to their evidence in support of his 
 claims : " Hearken unto Me," " Handle Me and see," 
 " Lift up your eyes and behold." 
 
 The Lord Jesus cannot be cited as a favorable 
 witness in support of the " Scientists' " theory. 
 
 It would be impossible for this compound man 
 to remain under closest inspection all these centuries, 
 and yet not exhibit some sign of the strange duality. 
 Now, when such an intensely interesting and bold 
 biological theory is broached, its only chance of 
 serious examination by the intelligent world would 
 be to support it by an array of accurate observations. 
 
 The prodigious accumulation of accurate obser- 
 vation is a large part of the claim for respect 
 which Mr. Darwin makes of his fellow-man. What 
 claim has Mrs. Eddy upon our serious attention ? 
 She not only cites no proofs of any kind, but she 
 reveals to us her total incapacity for observation. 
 It would be, indeed, inexplicable that people incapa- 
 ble of thinking, and uneducated, should give any heed 
 to her statements, but that intelligent crowds, who 
 have had the benefit of the public school educa- 
 tion, should listen to " readers," properly accred- 
 ited and salaried, for the very purpose of reading 
 " the little book," i3 as strange a vagary of human 
 
MAN. 73 
 
 nature as the history of it has ever produced. To 
 judge of the calibre of Mrs. Eddy's mind, and her 
 real capability for observation, read this astonishing 
 paragraph on page 537 : 
 
 It is related that a father, anxious to try this experiment, 
 plunged his infant babe, only a few hours old, into water for 
 several minutes, and repeated this operation daily, until the 
 child could remain under water twenty minutes, moving and 
 playing without harm, like a fish. Parents should remember 
 this, and so learn to develop their children properly on dry 
 land! 
 
 Let any one hold their breath even for one minute, 
 and they can estimate the value of the rest of Mrs. 
 Eddy's assertions. 
 
 All the children of Adam were born outside Para- 
 dise. We are particularly told that when in this con- 
 dition "Adam begat a son after his own lilieness and 
 in his own image," Gen. v., 3. The descending course 
 of human life has shown no signs of its returning 
 to its pristine purity. David said exactly what the 
 history tells us of the near descendants of Adam: 
 " Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my 
 mother conceive me," Psalm li., 5. And another 
 thousand years of human experience have shown no 
 improvement whatever. S. Paul stated his observa- 
 tion, " All have sinned and come short of the glory 
 of God," Rom. iii., 23; which is practically the same 
 language as David used: "They are all gone aside; 
 they are altogether become filthy; there is none that 
 doeth good; no, not one," Psalm xiv., 3. 
 
 If any one thinks that the race shows to-day any 
 tendency to betterment, let him gain an accurate 
 knowledge of the lives, say, of the Chinese, a people 
 of an sncient civilization, and with a system of 
 
74 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 education such as the world has never seen, by 
 which every post of Government, from the lowest 
 official to the Taoti of a Province, can only be had by 
 public examination. S. Paul's description of the 
 heathen world, as he knew it, is the description of 
 the heathen world to-day, where it has not been 
 influenced by an atmosphere of public opinion 
 cleared by the morals of Christianity. Read the 
 latter half of the first chapter of his Epistle to the 
 Romans, weigh the actual meaning of each sentence, 
 and it is a fearful indictment — " they have altogether 
 become filthy "! 
 
 It was to this world, " lying in wickedness," that 
 God came as a Saviour. And what is the plan of his 
 salvation ? Not the development of the Divine germ, 
 smothered and overborne by an accumulation of 
 " fleshly lust ; " not the liberation of " the true man " 
 from the grasp of his false double ; not the en- 
 lightening of "the spiritual consciousness" of the 
 real man, by the revelations vouchsafed to Mrs. Eddy, 
 that he may fling off the trammels of " mortal mind," 
 and rise from the charnel house of "sin, sickness and 
 death," to walk in the liberty wherewith " Christian 
 Science " hath made him free. To preach this were 
 " another gospel." The gospel of the grace of God 
 is the narration of the Incarnation, the death and the 
 resurrection of the second Person of the Blessed 
 Trinity, the Son of God. It is the assertion of the 
 mode of production of a new kind of vitality. It is 
 the statement of the process, as seen from a human 
 point of view, of the modification of the divine life 
 so that it could express itself through a body of this 
 ^esh. It is the solution of the problem how to make 
 
MAN. 75 
 
 the material and immaterial worlds sentient of each 
 other. 
 
 The Lord Jesus Christ took down the middle wall 
 of partition, and in Him the two worlds joined. 
 He was " the Son of Man " who is in heaven. Just 
 as He could say to Philip, " He that hath seen Me 
 hath seen the Father," so he could say to the 
 Intelligences of the Unseen World, " He that hath 
 seen Me hath seen humanity." This is not a sup- 
 position, but it is the central truth of the Bible, 
 which is called " the Book of this life." The last 
 of the inspired writers states the purport of the 
 whole compilation: "This is the record, that God 
 hath given us eternal life, and this life is in His 
 Son. He that hath the Son hath life, and he that 
 hath not the Son of God hath not life." 
 
 Now, it would be a thankless boon to bestow 
 upon us as " a gift " that which we already pos- 
 sessed. If we had in us " eternal life," why cause 
 the inexpressible sacrifice of the Son of God to 
 provide it for us ? Nothing is clearer in the Word 
 of God, that " we have no life in us ; " that we are 
 " dead in trespasses and sins ; " our English pre- 
 position "in" is a very feeble representative of its 
 Greek parent ; in its original is included the agency 
 by which the condition was acquired ; it is " the 
 trespasses and sins " which keep us " dead." In this 
 state "life " is presented to us ; that will, which our 
 first parents used to do the deed of disobedience, 
 has still the same liberty, and can accept this gift 
 of eternal life if it so wills. Therefore, our Lord 
 stood in the midst of the human procession and 
 cried; "Ye will not to come unto Me, that ye might 
 
76 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 have life," John v., 40. As might be expected, 
 when this life was accepted by anyone, then the only 
 word we have to express the inheritance of life 
 comes to be used — he is said to be "born from 
 above," John iii., 3. Or, to use S. Paul's words, 
 "And you, who were dead, hath He quickened," 
 Ephes. ii., i. It is a question of the impartation 
 of life, a new vitality. S. Paul, describing one 
 who has received it, declares him to be " a new 
 creation," a totally new being, vitalized with 
 another kind of life. The Apostle asserts: " The 
 life I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of 
 the Son of God; and when Christ, who is my life, 
 shall appear, then shall I also appear with Him in 
 glory," Gal. ii., 20. 
 
 This life carries with it the marks of any other 
 vitality. It has a character of its own, from which 
 it never deviates. This character was most thor- 
 oughly displayed in Jesus of Nazareth. But the 
 instant it finds lodgment in any heart, it there and 
 then begins to produce a character more and more 
 approaching His, as the life more and more gains 
 command of the man. This is a very singular 
 biological fact, and one which has not received the 
 attention it deserves. It matters not who may be 
 the subject of its influence, learned or unlearned, 
 young or old, civilized or savage, the Esquimo of 
 the Arctic zone or the negro of the tropics; at once 
 is exhibited, despite the varied conditions of race, 
 temperament, tradition or environment, the self-same 
 character, whose elements are " love, joy, peace, long- 
 suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, disinterested- 
 ness, temperance." This is so real and so certain, 
 
MAN. 77 
 
 that S. Paul points to that other mark of true life, 
 the determination to reproduce its original, and 
 accounts for the invariable exhibition of these traits 
 of character by saying that "Christ is formed in us." 
 This is the declaration of " the text book " of the 
 " Christian Scientists," and it is as far from what 
 they profess to have found in it as well-nigh can 
 be imagined. Any one of the quotations already 
 cited is quite sufficient to discredit their impossible 
 theory. But if any one has any lingering doubt, let 
 him consider the meaning of the words of S. John 
 i., II, etc. The Divine Apostle says that his Master 
 was that "life" which was the "light" of men; that 
 " He came to His own, and His own received Him 
 not; but as many as received Him, to them gave He 
 authority to be called sons of God, even to them that 
 believe in His name;" that is, that when He, the 
 life, found entrance to an open heart, that being, by 
 virtue of the life, became united in living union with 
 the origin of that life, and therefore had the right, 
 the authority, to be classed as a son of God. And 
 this marvellous condition was not acquired by any 
 possible human effort; it was not a development 
 of that which was already in human nature; it could 
 not be come by, by any process of training in 
 " science," or any other mode of initiation ; but it 
 was wholly a gracious gift of God. "Which were 
 born not of blood;" we did not inherit this Christ- 
 life from our parents; "nor of the will of flesh;" 
 this is by no means a repetition of what has just 
 been stated; but "of flesh," without the article, was 
 the Jewish mode of referring to circumcision, and all 
 the ceremonial which followed upon it. The Apostle 
 
78 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 tells us that this " Divine seed " is not got by any 
 ceremonial, or sacrament, or church privilege; "nor 
 of the will of man ; " no human effort or device will 
 cause a soul thus to be born into the family of God; 
 there is one, and only one way; it is the soul itself 
 opening to receive Jesus Christ, it is thus "of God." 
 " Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and if any 
 man open the door, we will come in to him and sup 
 with him." 
 
 This is the natural history of redeemed man as 
 given in the Bible, and it bears no likeness whatever 
 to that taught by " Scientists." 
 
 " I speak to wise men, judge ye what I say." 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE HOLY GHOST. 
 
 WE must bear in mind that " Christian Science " 
 and its relatives profess not only to take the 
 Bible for their text book, but that its deep and spirit- 
 ual meaning is revealed to them in fuller measure 
 than to those who study it in the usual way. 
 
 Everyone who is led by the Spirit of God naturally 
 has a delight in seeking the Mind of God as revealed 
 in His Word. The experiences of Bible students is 
 uniform, that " spiritual things are spiritually re- 
 vealed ; " that it is not to mere human intelligence 
 and persistent study that the Bible yields up its 
 precious treasures, but it is by the illumination of 
 the Spirit that the sacred page becomes perspicuous, 
 and what to the ordinary reader is an intellectual 
 reception, to the true child of God becomes " a living 
 word ; " and at once acknowledgment is made that 
 "The entrance of Thy Word giveth light." Of this 
 prominent peculiarity of the true Christian the 
 "Christian Scientist" is provided with a close coun- 
 terfeit. This it is which most deceives the religiously 
 inclined, the mere formal Christian, as it is shown 
 that the study of the Bible is the ardent practice 
 of " Scientists." To the unwary this appears a sure 
 sign that " the thing is of God." But it is a coun- 
 terfeit sign. 
 
80 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 The Baconian figment of the authorship of Shakes- 
 peare lately had a transient passage over the literary 
 sky. Had anyone seen Mr. Ignatius Donnelly and his 
 co-believers diligently conning their Shakespeares, 
 it would have been a fair deduction that they were 
 devoted students of the great poet. But they were 
 not. What attracted them was only to search for 
 apparent proofs of the novel theory which they had 
 adopted. So it is with " Scientists " ; they do not 
 study the Bible humbly and reverently to learn, 
 " What will the Lord say to me ? " but to find sup- 
 port for the vagaries of their " Science of Being," 
 and to twist the English translation of a Greek book 
 to fit the crannies and turns of their desultory, tor- 
 tuous theory. 
 
 If they declare the Bible to be their " text book," 
 and if they are ever ready to cite froni its pages 
 what they think is in their favor, they cannot object 
 to honestly measuring their tenets by its express 
 statements. There is scarcely any more vital revela- 
 tion to us, living in this Dispensation, than the posi- 
 tion occupied by the Holy Ghost in the present 
 governance of the Church. When Jesus was glori- 
 fied, the Holy Spirit, " the other advocate," descended 
 to undertake the personal direction of the Church. 
 So persistently is He referred to in the Acts of the 
 Apostles, that that book might well be called "The 
 Acts of the Holy Ghost." He came with irresistible 
 power on the day of Pentecost, and remained on 
 earth. The Apostles continued in Jerusalem, a col- 
 lege, for twenty years, bearing witness, in the only 
 place on earth where their witness could be refuted, 
 to the Resurrection. S. Peter well knew the im- 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 81 
 
 mense necessity of this institution. He said to the 
 Sanhedrim: "And we are his witnesses of these 
 things; and so also is the Holy Ghost," Acts v., 32. 
 When they sat in council it is almost as if the King- 
 donii of God were at length " set up " on earth, and 
 the royal throne in the council chamber possessed 
 in actual sight the August Majesty. The very first 
 edict they issued, which was to lay to rest the burn- 
 ing question of the time, whether the Gentile converts 
 should first become Jews before they could be ad- 
 mitted into the Church of Christ, begins: " It seemed 
 good to the Holy Ghost and to us," Acts xv., 28, 
 They do not appear to deem any preface or explana- 
 tion necessary; but, as if it were natural and well 
 understood, they count the Holy Ghost as one of 
 their number. 
 
 Throughout the whole book He is ever present 
 in distinct personality. It was to the Holy Ghost 
 Ananias and Sapphira lied; it was the Holy Ghost 
 who spoke by the Apostles; it was the Holy Ghost 
 the persecutors of Stephen resisted; it was that the 
 men on whom Simon Magus should lay his hands 
 might receive the Holy Ghost that he offered Peter 
 money; it was the Holy Ghost who sent Philip to 
 join himself to the Ethiopian Eunuch; it was the 
 Holy Ghost who " caught away Philip " after his 
 mission was fulfilled; it was the Holy Ghost who 
 sent Peter to the Roman, Cornelius; it was the Holy 
 Ghost who said, '' Separate me Barnabas and Saul 
 for the work whereunto I have called them ;" it was 
 the Holy Ghost who forbade them to preach the 
 Word in Asia; it was the Holy Ghost who suffered 
 them not to go into Bithynia; it was the Holy Ghost 
 
82 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 who, S. Paul declared to the Ephesian Elders, had 
 made them overseers of the flock; and the whole 
 narrative is full of the receiving of the gifts of the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 That constant students of the Bible should fail to 
 note the fact that the Holy Ghost is the Divine 
 operator in that age, of which the Acts of the 
 Apostles is the first historical page, and in which 
 we are at present living, seems incredible. And 
 when we learn that, as at the first creation, He it 
 was who imparted life to this lifeless planet, so He 
 presides over the birth of the new man, and the 
 second creation is due to his life-giving energy; 
 when we know that the whole initiative of salvation 
 rests with Him, and that our eternal safety wholly 
 depends upon the possession or the non-possession 
 of the Holy Ghost, then it is strangely ominous that 
 " Scientists " discard His personality and reduce His 
 mighty agency to the intangibility of a " develop- 
 ment of eternal life, Truth and Love," page 567. 
 
 This is so serious a charge that it becomes us to 
 examine carefully what this "Science" does hold 
 concerning the Holy Ghost. 
 
 In the Bible, Holy Ghost and Spirit are synony- 
 mous terms, but not so in "Divine Science." "Spirit" 
 is defined, page 573, as: 
 
 Divine substance; mind; principle; all that is good; God; 
 that only which is perfect, infinite, everlasting; omnipresent 
 and omnipotent. 
 
 On page 230 we are told " Soul and Spirit are one." 
 Whatever, therefore, may be meant by "Spirit," and 
 it is not easy to say what Mrs. Eddy does mean, she 
 certainly does not intend us to understand that when 
 
THE HOLY GHOST. 83 
 
 the word Spirit is used, the Holy Ghost of the Bible 
 is meant. 
 
 Holy Ghost she defines on page 567 to be "Divine 
 Science ; the developments of eternal life, Truth and 
 Love." 
 
 In recounting the salient features of our Lord's life 
 in the light of "Divine Science," on page 351, she 
 thus proceeds : 
 
 His students then received the Holy Ghost. By this is 
 meant, that by all they had witnessed and suffered they were 
 roused to an .enlarged understanding of Divine Science. 
 
 . . . . They no longer measured man by material sense. 
 After gaining a true idea of their glorified Master they became 
 better healers, leaning no longer on a leader, but on the Divine 
 principle of their work. The influx of light was sudden. It 
 was sometimes in overwhelming power, as on the day of Pente- 
 cost. 
 
 Page 348 : 
 
 Hitherto they o.ily believed; now they understood. This 
 understanding is what is meant by the descent of the Holy 
 Ghost, that influx of Divine Science which so illuminated the 
 Pentecostal days, and is now repeating its ancient history. 
 
 On page 255 is given the platform of " Christian 
 Science." Article X. is : 
 
 The Holy Ghost, or Spirit, reveals this triune Principle, and 
 is expressed in Divine Science, which is the Comforter, leading 
 into all truth, and revealing the Divine principle of the universe — 
 universal and perpetual harmony. 
 
 It might be thought from the first of these quota- 
 tions that Mrs. Eddy uses " Divine Science " as another 
 appellation of the Holy Ghost, but we are precluded 
 from accepting this by the statement on page 1 7 that 
 
 the re-discovery of this Divine Science of mind-healing, 
 through a spiritual sense of the Scriptures and through the 
 teachings of the Comforter, as promised by the Master, 
 
84 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 is one of the two parts of the revelation vouchsafed 
 to Mrs. Eddy: 
 
 When standing within the shadow of the Death Valley, I 
 learned these truths in Divine Science. 
 
 If some of these expressions seem to recognize the 
 personality of the Holy Ghost, this cannot be of 
 deliberate purpose, and must be ascribed to a lapsus 
 calami, in the presence of such repeated expressi,ons as 
 "the facts of Divine Science," "the mirror. Divine 
 Science," " the Alpha and Omega of Divine Science." 
 
 There are onlj' two other references, if the index 
 be complete, to the Holy Ghost. In one, page 364, 
 " the chambers of disease " appear to be called "The 
 temple of the Holy Ghost," and the other is (page 
 334): 
 
 The Holy Ghost, or Divine Spirit, overshadowed the pure 
 sense of the Virgin-Mother with the full recognition that Being 
 is Spirit. 
 
 What would be the Acts of the Apostles and the 
 Epistles, if from them were eliminated all mention of 
 the Holy Ghost ? But " Science and Health, with 
 Key to the Scriptures,'' would be very much benefited 
 if the seven indistinct and uncertain allusions to Him 
 were left out. 
 
 The conclusion is inevitably forced upon us, that 
 this system of " Christian Science " has no place for 
 the work of the Holy Ghost; and as He alone is the 
 " Lord and Life-Giver," as without Him there can 
 be no life unto God, no birth into the Kingdom of 
 Christ, no process of sanctification, and no final holi- 
 ness, "without which no man shall see the Lord," the 
 relation between " Christian Science " and Christian- 
 ity seems but nominal. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SPIRIT. 
 
 IF Mrs. Eddy had written with even any attempt at 
 exactness, her book and her ' science ' would never 
 have had the success they have. A perusal of the 
 pages of this remarkable book will reveal to the per- 
 son of ordinary intelligence that that quality of the 
 mind which is called ' thought ' is here so persistently 
 defied, that at length it retires from endeavoring to 
 understand what the authoress means, and in that 
 bewilderment which then ensues, the mind surren- 
 ders itself to that very condition which is essential 
 for the operation of ' suggestion ' to work upon the 
 disordered body. 
 
 I found that ^Nlrs. Eddy's book was the best mode 
 of inducing the mesmeric sleep I had ever experi- 
 enced. The repetition of senseless sentences, with 
 constantly changing signification of words, whose 
 new meanings had to be gleaned from the context; 
 this long string of synonyms: Principle; Mind; Soul; 
 Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; Substance; Intelligence; 
 are all synonyms for God, and their interchange in 
 sentences produced a strange maze, which made the 
 mind dazed, and it took on the mesmeric condition. 
 When in this state, the 'subjective' mind was lib- 
 erated to follow ' suggestion.' Of course this process 
 
86 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 will only be effective with certain people. Those who 
 decline to read unless they understand, declare the 
 book to be rubbish, and throw it aside; but those 
 who are not particular about fathoming what they 
 read, accept what Mrs. Eddy has written, yield them- 
 selves to the misty labyrinth of her sentences, become 
 mentally dizzy, though they do not recognize it — 
 mesmerized, in fact. It is a condition not unallied 
 to intoxication, and is as enthralling and attractive. 
 
 Not long ago I heard that a young professional 
 man of great promise, who was, and indeed is, af- 
 flicted with such nervousness that he is unable to 
 control his muscular movements, was attending the 
 " Church of Christ " (Scientist). I asked him if he 
 had accepted the theories there propounded. He re- 
 plied, smiling, " Well, no; but you know how nervous 
 I am, and I find going there mesmerizes me, and I 
 sit quiet." 
 
 In thus writing, I am not making unwarrantable 
 aspersions on Mrs. Eddy's indiscriminate use of 
 words, and the playfulness with which she treats 
 their etymology. I quote from page 233, a plank from 
 her ' platform : ' 
 
 The word Adam is from the Hebrew Adamah, signifying the 
 red color of the ground, dust, nothingness. Divide the name 
 Adam into two syllables and it reads " dam, or obstruction. 
 This suggests the thought of something fluid, of mortal mind 
 in solution, of the darkness which seemed to appear when 
 " darkness was upon the face of the deep," and matter stood as 
 opposed to spirit, as that which is accursed. 
 
 Despite the fact that lucidity would render inopera- 
 tive the whole system, there must be some people 
 among the 200,000 'Scientists' who believe that Mrs. 
 
SPIRIT. 87 
 
 Eddy's terms are to be seriously taken, and that 
 definite meanings are to be ascribed to her phrases. 
 
 We now reach the keynote of the " Science," Spirit. 
 It will be well to remind ourselves that there are 
 certain ideas which the human mind is not con- 
 structed to entertain. Infinity, for instance. No 
 number can be conceived to which it is not possible 
 to add a unit; no space can be thought of to which 
 an extension cannot be imagined. Spirit, too, lies 
 beyond the grasp of the human mind. We are so 
 familiar with the word, that we have come to believe 
 we have a conception of Spirit; but let the attempt be 
 made to form a mental picture of Spirit, and it will 
 be found impossible. We receive all our ideas from 
 sensation and reflection; but as we have no sensa- 
 tion of Spirit, the mind is not supplied with the 
 elements from which to construct its idea. 
 
 The body has been under our closest scrutiny for 
 these six thousand years, and as yet scientific obser- 
 vation has not been able to note any single fact about 
 " life," the spiritual power which drives the marvellous 
 mechanism. The complete seclusion in which this 
 spiritual force secretes itself is the more remarkable 
 when we consider its wonderful strength; the human 
 heart is worked by it with a force which could lift 
 25 foot-tons in twenty-four hours. Few people com- 
 prehend the terrific energy of this unseen occupier of 
 the human frame. When we consider this, and re- 
 member that the governor of this seething corpora- 
 tion has never been brought forth to view, although 
 he has been unweariedly sought for, it ought to make 
 us cautious in our use of the word Spirit. 
 
 Matter would seem to be the bete noire of the 
 
88 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 ' scientists.' Mrs. Eddy views matter as not only the 
 opposite of Spirit, but its determined antagonist. 
 She is unable to see how the Creator, himself Spirit, 
 can ever have brought into existence so unspiritual 
 a thing as matter. But what is impossible to Mrs. 
 Eddy and her following may not be so difficult to 
 minds otherwise educated. On page 174 she writes: 
 
 Is Spirit the source or creator of matter? Science reveals 
 nothing in Spirit out of which to create matter. 
 
 Science destroys matter. Spirit is the only substance and 
 consciousness recognized by Science. 
 
 The senses oppose this, but there are no material senses, for 
 matter has no sensation. To Science there is no matter, even 
 as to truth there is no error, and to good no evil. 
 
 It is a false supposition, the notion that there is real substance- 
 matter, the opposite of Spirit. Spirit is God, and God is all; 
 hence He can have no opposite. 
 
 This last sentence contains the central falsity upon 
 which pivots the whole theory of " Christian Science:" 
 " Spirit is God, and God is all; therefore all is Spirit." 
 " Spirit is God " may be true, if, to adopt the lan- 
 guage of theological science, the substance of the 
 Deity is Spirit. Our Lord said to the woman at the 
 well, in order to impress upon her that materialism 
 was not the great question, for all her religion was a 
 matter of facts and forms, that " God is Spirit," not a 
 Spirit. But to say that whatever being is composed 
 of spirit is God, is not true ; for there are evil intelli- 
 gences who are of spirit, and vast orders of life which 
 people the unseen world. So that what we ought to 
 say is. Some Spirit is God. 
 
 Then, again, to say " God is all" is not true. Our 
 Lord, only to refer to one of his assertions, said to 
 those who resisted Him, "Ye are of your father, the 
 
SPIRIT. 89 
 
 devil;" and even if the " Scientists " will not allow the 
 existence of the devil, there are many men who have 
 not a spark of goodness in them. " God is not in all 
 their thoughts." These inhabit that land of Nod, 
 where Cain and his following live in forgetfulness of 
 God, and are "without God" in their world. So 
 God is not all. 
 
 The " Scientists " seem to forget that the very neces- 
 sity of Love is, that it shall have some being on 
 whom to rest its affections. That God, being Love, 
 was compelled to people the universe with personali- 
 ties, whom He might love. Such personalities must 
 have freedom of choice. If a being is compelled to 
 act according to the mind of another, and has no mind 
 of his own, he is an automaton, and not worth loving. 
 Such personalities God did create, and we are speci- 
 mens of them; we certainly have freedom of choice; 
 we can obey or disobey God. So that the favorite 
 assertion of " Scientists " is not true, God is not all. 
 
 When He will say, and is saying, " Depart from Me 
 ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil 
 and his angels," He declares that there are beings in 
 existence with whom He has no part, and in whom 
 He does not and cannot reside. God is Spirit, but 
 God is not all. Whether what is not God can be 
 asserted to be Spirit or not, we cannot say. Mrs. 
 Eddy, however, is less cautious. On page 230 she 
 affirms: "God never created matter, for there is 
 nothing in Spirit out of which matter could be made." 
 This entirely depends upon what Spirit is, and what 
 are its qualities and capabilities. 
 
 Suppose we allow that Spirit is substance. When 
 Mrs. Eddy says, page 230, that " Spirit is the only 
 
90 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 substance," she probably expresses a greater truth 
 than she at all imagines; indeed, the next words show 
 she has not an inkling of the possible truth of her 
 assertion that " Spirit is the only substance, the in- 
 visible and indivisible God." 
 
 To be able to at all think clearly upon this occult 
 subject we must be careful to discriminate between 
 Spirit and Life. When we say Spirit is substance, we 
 mean that it is an existence which lends itself to the 
 offices of Life. Substance is that which " stands 
 under" and gives support to something else. We 
 may even say that Spirit is to a spiritual being what 
 flesh is to a human being. This, indeed, S. Paul 
 distinctly says: " There is a natural body and there 
 is a spiritual body," I. Cor. xv., 44; but the word he 
 used for " natural " would be literally rendered by 
 " soulical," if there was such a word; that is, a body 
 of which the soul is the vitality, the animal body. 
 So the life, when it is a denizen of an immaterial or 
 spiritual world, needs some substance of which to 
 construct a body wherein and whereby it may trans- 
 act the business of that world — "a spiritual body." 
 
 It seems probable that the life assumes for itself 
 three bodies, each of them necessary in the three 
 states which we are to inhabit. As we are now, here 
 in this material world, we have a body of the same 
 sort of matter as the planet on which we live. " The 
 Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." 
 
 Shortly we shall " shuffle off this mortal coil." 
 What "body" will the life then occupy?" The 
 spiritual body, S. Paul tell us; that is, a body of the 
 nature of that spiritual world, where it will await the 
 day of the Resurrection. Then it will again occupy 
 
SPIRIT. 91 
 
 a third body, adapted to the altered conditions which 
 have brought about " the new heavens and the new 
 earth." We have been granted some insight of this 
 mysterious subject in seeing the changes to which the 
 body of the Lord was subject. When He died, He cer- 
 tainly carried with Him his personality. The man who 
 was crucified on his right hand no doubt recognized 
 Him in Paradise; he must have been able to do so, 
 otherwise the Lord's assurance, " This day thou shalt 
 be with Me in Paradise," would have been little else 
 than a phrase without definite meaning. Our Blessed 
 Lord doubtless would appear the same man to him in 
 Paradise as he saw Him on Calvary. Abraham and 
 Joshua and Daniel, and the disciples, and 'the spirits' 
 in prison, and those to whom He showed Himself after 
 his resurrection, and S. Stephen and S. Paul and 
 S. John, after his glorification, all saw the same man. 
 His personal appearance was no doubt always the 
 same, only under various conditions suitable to its 
 environment, it was a 'vile' body or a 'glorified' 
 body; but always the body of the Son of God, 
 through which the Deity, ever unseen, expressed 
 Himself to the beings He was then dwelling with. 
 
 The qualities of the resurrection body of the Lord 
 ought to make " Scientists," and the ordinary kind of 
 Scientists, more careful what assertions they use 
 about matter. The material of that body evidently 
 possessed other qualities than those which describe 
 the matter with which we are familiar. It was not a 
 phantom shape. Thomas doubtless could have put 
 his finger into the print of the nails, and have thrust 
 his hand into the gaping spear-wound in his side. It 
 evidently was not seen by reflected light. It was 
 
93 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 recognized by another sort of light, perhaps that 
 kind of light which illumines the other world, where 
 they need not the sun to lighten them; moreover, it 
 could only be seen when He willed it. No one, sav- 
 ing those who 'knew ' Him, appears to have been able 
 to see Him. It was only to his own that He ever 
 ' shewed Himself ' after his resurrection, and the 
 power of recognition had something to do with the 
 condition of their own faith, for when He met all his 
 Galilsean disciples we are told all the five hundred saw 
 Him, 'but some doubted.' His body still retained 
 some qualities in common with the material of which 
 this world is made; his voice moved the air and made 
 sound; and He ate before them ' a piece of a broiled 
 fish and an honey comb.' 
 
 Mrs. Eddy, no doubt to ward off the very natural 
 suggestion that if matter is nothing but an illusion, 
 it were folly to persist in the delusion that food is 
 necessary to maintain what is nothing, declares, "We 
 need more goodness." Now, I hope she would not 
 suggest that our Blessed Lord was not actual 
 'Righteousness' itself; and yet He was pleased to eat; 
 so that it is not a question of 'goodness' whether we 
 can do without food. 
 
 Our Lord's body could pass through closed doors 
 and walls; it could appear and vanish at will; and at 
 last, in no chariot of fire, but by its own capability, it 
 ascended into heaven. It evidently was either not 
 subservient to the law of gravitation, or completely 
 under the control of the will. This gives us a glimpse 
 of another kind of matter, a kind which is much 
 nearer the condition of the substance of the spiritual 
 world. This, we believe, shall be the condition of 
 
SPIRIT. 93 
 
 our bodies when we shall rise from our graves, for 
 we are assured ' we shall be like Him.' 
 
 There are certain hints in this direction which 
 science has of late whispered which are little less than 
 exciting. We have long known that the whole uni- 
 verse is filled with a fluid which physicists have 
 agreed to call ether. It is the oscillations of this 
 ether which cause in us the sensation of light. We 
 can measure the lengths of these oscillations, or 
 waves; we know the exact number which must occur 
 in a second to produce a certain color. It would oc- 
 cupy the whole of the population of the United 
 States, counting for twelve hours a day, nearly six 
 months to count the number of waves of ether which 
 must impinge upon the retina of the eye in one sec- 
 ond to give the sensation of violet light for one short 
 moment. Certain mathematical conditions seem to 
 require that, to allow of the prodigious velocity with 
 which waves of light traverse the ether, this ether 
 shall have something like a pressure of 70,000 pounds 
 on each square inch of surface. That is to say, the 
 whole universe is moving, not in empty space, but in 
 a transparent, impalpable, imponderable something, 
 ether, more dense than almost any solid with 
 which we are familiar. It is practically certain that 
 the particles of matter are in violent movement; that 
 that which appears to us silent and motionless is 
 really in indescribable commotion, greatly accelerated 
 by any rise of temperature. Lord Kelvin, the great- 
 est living authority on such subjects, suggested what 
 is known as " The Vortex Theory,'' that matter itself 
 is composed of vortices, discs or rings, of this ether, 
 in varying conditions of movement and compression. 
 
94 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 and there are mathematical considerations which again 
 support this theory. Here, then, is a purely physical 
 conception of the universe that is startling. This 
 ether, which cannot be seen or handled, and which is 
 imponderable, under certain conditions becomes 
 matter. Matter is simply a term for ether in these 
 particular conditions. Ether is the only substance. 
 Substitute the word Spirit for the word Ether in the 
 foregoing, and the words of Mrs. Eddy are truly 
 prophetic, " Spirit is the only substance." 
 
 Pondering on this wonderful subject, the Boston 
 Sybil, oppressed with her mighty mission, on page 
 225 of "the little book," wrote: 
 
 The individuality of spirit is unknown, and thus a knowledge 
 of it is left either to human conjecture or to the revelation of 
 "Divine Science." 
 
 We still wait for the revelation; and in the mean- 
 time we deal with matter, as food, clothing, and even 
 dollar bills, as Mrs. Eddy herself does, and advises 
 her pupils, the Healers, to do likewise ! 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 
 
 THE grand distinguishing feature of tiie Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ is the doctrine of the forgive- 
 ness of sin. No philosophy which ever laid serious 
 claim to the attention of men has ever proposed a 
 way by which the consequences of wrong-doing in 
 the past might be averted, and the present inclina- 
 tion to do wrong again taken away. No religious 
 teacher on earth ever boldly proclaimed to his fellow- 
 men that by following his advice, they might be rid 
 at once of the future consequences and present power 
 of sin, but Jesus Christ. He, and He alone of men, 
 ventured to say, " Come unto Me all ye that are 
 weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest " — 
 rest from ' the burdens of the way ' and the fear of 
 future retribution. That this is no vain Gospel is 
 witnessed to by thousands in every generation. 
 Jesus Christ has never been without witnesses to the 
 wonderful result of 'coming unto Him.' 
 
 His people 'praise God in the fires;' they 'sing 
 songs in the night; ' they are 'filled with the joy and 
 peace of the Holy Ghost;' they are 'in' the world 
 but not 'of the world; they walk on air. Read the 
 present evidence of missionaries all over the world; 
 read the story of John Paton, who is to-day on the 
 
96 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 island of Aniwa, in the New Hebrides, and there see 
 how a whole island of brutal cannibals became in 
 eight years transformed into a peaceful, loving, joy- 
 ous community, by the Gospel of Jesus Christ; or go 
 to the nearest Salvation Army captain and ask him 
 to show you a man or a woman who a few months 
 ago was living in dirt and shame, and you may now 
 see 'a new creature,' with a changed nature and a 
 changed face. The minister of every church ought 
 to be able to point you out here and there one who 
 had suddenly ' touched Christ,' and was walking ' in 
 the light of life,' with a halo of very glory about 
 them, the peace and joy of the Holy Ghost. This is 
 why miracles are no longer necessary. 
 
 The ' signs ' that the Gospel of Christ is * the power 
 of God unto salvation ' are all round us. To change 
 a whole nature is a much more astonishing work 
 than to open the eyes of a blind man. This is done 
 every day by the simple, straightforward statement 
 of the Gospel, and its whole-hearted acceptance. It 
 is by ' taking God at his word,' and ' believing ' what 
 He says, that our ' sins are forgiven by the sacrifice 
 of Jesus Christ;' that we ' yield ourselves unto God;' 
 then the life of Christ — that is, Christ himself — 'comes 
 into us and abides with us.' This is the change 
 which comes in conversion, and the astonishing effect 
 of it can be explained in no other way. It then fol- 
 lows, that if the soul becomes vitalized by the life of 
 Christ, so that the words of S. Paul are experi- 
 mentally realized: 'The life that I now live in the 
 flesh I live by Christ's faith, and when Christ, who is 
 my life, shall appear, then shall I also appear with 
 Him in glory,' Gal. ii., 20; if the assertion of S. John 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 97 
 
 comes true, ' He that is born of God sinneth not, for 
 his seed remaineth in him;' then it must be that the 
 actual 'life' of the Lord Jesus Christ is in the 
 believer; and whatever that life did, or will do, the 
 person that has it, also did, and will do! This is the 
 way we are ' planted together into His death,' in the 
 past; and by this absolute union with Christ, we even 
 now 'sit together with Him in heavenly places.' In 
 fine, we are veritable members of his body, bone of 
 his bone, flesh of his flesh; one with Christ, and 
 Christ with us. Astounding as it may seem, never- 
 theless it is an inevitable consequence of ' the law of 
 this life,' that whatever Christ is or has, that, and 
 nothing less, is ours; " All things are j'^ours, and you 
 are Christ's, and Christ is God's." 
 
 This is the Gospel Paul preached; now see what 
 a pitiful travesty of this magnificent revelation is 
 "Christian Science." If Mrs. Eddy and company 
 discarded the Bible, and honestly declared that they 
 shewed unto us ' a more excellent way,' we should 
 at least know by what to estimate their offer. But 
 professing to ' take the Bible for their text-book,' 
 and characterizing themselves as "Christian Scien- 
 tists," they mislead unwary souls and palm off upon 
 them ' another Gospel,' which has no salvation in it, 
 and they well deserve the anathema S. Paul pro- 
 nounces against them. 
 
 The Christian reader of the books of Mrs. Eddy, 
 and Mrs. Cramer, and Mr. Henry Wood, and the 
 other writers of the cult, soon becomes aware that 
 none of them have any conception of the real nature 
 of sin. It is never more than casually mentioned, 
 and is always spoken of as a flaw of the disposition, and 
 
98 " A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 never as the deep-seated leprosy of the nature. On 
 page 345 Mrs. Eddy gives us her opinion on this vital 
 question: "When mortals once admit that evil con- 
 fers no pleasure, they turn from it;" which is not true- 
 How many a man have I seen 'tied and bound with 
 the chain of his sin,' with bitter tears cursing and 
 loathing the strong drink which he detested and yet 
 loved, and could not turn from, although it not only 
 gave him no pleasure, but was bringing on him and 
 his swift and sure desolation; but to proceed: 
 
 "Divine Science'' adjusts the balance as Jesus adjusted it. 
 Science removes the penalty, only by first removing the sin, 
 which incurs the penalty. This is the sense of divine pardon 
 which I understand to mean God's method of destroying sin. 
 
 How can ' Science ' remove a penalty by removing 
 a sin which already has been committed ? If " Divine 
 Science " can turn back the shadow on the sun dial, 
 and cause yesterday to be lived over again, with the 
 experience it yielded, then we can understand how the 
 sin might be ' removed,' by preventing it ever being 
 committed. It is mere childishness, if not something 
 infinitely worse, to propose to remit sin, which the 
 recording angel has registered, by ' removing it.' 
 This is not " God's method of destroying sin." 
 
 Sin is the very defection of our nature. This na- 
 ture descends from parent to child by means of blood, 
 "which is the life thereof," an assertion constantly 
 repeated in the Old Testament. As long as this cur- 
 rent of life descends, so long must the beings who 
 live by it be a sinful race, ' dead unto God in tres- 
 passes and sins,' without eternal life. But into the line 
 of descent came the Son of God. Mrs. Eddy says, 
 p. 334: "Jesus was the offspring of Mary's self»-con- 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 99 
 
 scious communion with God," which means nothing. 
 Jesus Christ was " conceived of the Holy Ghost, born 
 of the Virgin Mary." The words of the angel state all 
 that the human mind can understand of the mighty 
 undertaking. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 thee, and the power of the Highest shall over- 
 shadow thee, therefore that Holy thing which shall be 
 born of thee (that holy-begotten thing), shall be 
 called the Son of God." So it was that his nature 
 was the Deity, and his body was of the flesh of 
 man. 
 
 In his body ran the blood of Adam's race. On 
 Calvary He parted with that blood, but by virtue of his 
 Divine nature He lived through the catastrophe of 
 human death, and came back to life still with a body 
 of this flesh, but without that blood by which only 
 could be the continuance of the sinful nature of 
 fallen man. He carefully referred to this, when allay- 
 ing the fear of his disciples the night of his resurrec- 
 tion: 'A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see I 
 have.' He did not use the ordinary phrase, ' flesh 
 and blood; ' there was no blood in his body. The 
 wounds were open, but bloodless. This is the reason 
 of that well-known assertion, strikingly made by the 
 shedding of the blood of the Sacrificial Victim, and 
 put into words by the inspired writer, " Without the 
 shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." 
 
 This is the Gospel S. Paul preached: "Jesus Christ 
 and Him crucified," and this is not the Gospel of " Di- 
 vine Science." Mrs. Eddy says, p. 227: 
 
 The efficacy of the Crucifixion lies in the practical affection 
 and goodness it demonstrated for mankind. The material blood 
 of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was 
 
100 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 shed upon the accursed tree, than it was when it was flowing in 
 his veins. 
 Page 327: 
 
 Final deliverance from error .... is not reached by 
 pinning one's faith to another's vicarious effort. Whosoever 
 believeth that wrath is righteous cannot understand God. 
 
 Page 328: 
 
 One sacrifice, however great, is insuflBcient to pay the debt of 
 sin. 
 
 Page 345: 
 
 Another's suffering cannot lessen our own liability. Did the 
 martyrdom of Savonarola make the crimes of his implacable 
 enemies less criminal ? 
 
 No! but Savonarola was not 'the Lamb of God 
 which taketh away the sins of the world.' 
 
 Page 229: 
 
 The invisible Christ was incorporeal, whereas Jesus was a 
 corporeal or bodily existence. This dual personality of the seen 
 and the unseen, the Jesus and the Christ, continued until the 
 Master's ascension ; and then the human, the corporeal concept, or 
 Jesus, disappeared; while the invisible, the spiritual idea, or the 
 Christ, continued. 
 
 Let us finally turn to the text-book of the " Chris- 
 tian Scientists," the Bible, and learn what it says: 
 
 " The love of Christ constraineth us; because we 
 thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; 
 and that He died for all, that they which live should 
 not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him 
 which died for (in the place of) them," I. Cor. v., 14. 
 
 " He hath made Him to be sin for us, who knew no 
 sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God 
 in Him," L Cor. v., 21. 
 
 "God, sending his own Son, in the likeness of sin- 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 101 
 
 ful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh," 
 Rom. viii., 3. 
 
 " Once, in the end of the world, hath He appeared 
 to put away sin, by the sacrifice of Himself. 
 Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many," 
 Heb. ix., 26-28. 
 
 "We are sanctified through the offering of the body 
 of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . By one offering 
 He hath perfected forever them that are being sancti- 
 fied," Heb. X., 10-14. 
 
 "Who in his own self bare our sins in his own 
 body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should 
 live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were 
 healed," I. Pet. ii., 24. 
 
 " Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh," I. Pet. 
 iv., I. 
 
 " The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us 
 from all sin," I. Joh. i., 7. 
 
 "He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for 
 ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." 
 
 " Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our 
 sorrows ; and we did esteem Him stricken, smitten 
 of God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our 
 transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities; the 
 chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with 
 his stripes we are healed. . . . The Lord hath 
 laid on Him the iniquity of us all. It pleased the 
 Lord to bruise Him; He hath put Him to grief; 
 when Thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, He 
 shall see his seed. He shall prolong his days, and the 
 pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand," 
 Isaiah liii., 4, 6, 10. 
 
 It was thus that ' The Son of Man,' the epitome of 
 
102 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 humanity, placed himself in our stead, and ' slew the 
 enmity' which separated the human race from God 
 and Holiness, by suffering death; pouring out his 
 blood as a sacrifice for sin. In Him we all died, and 
 ' He that is dead is freed (justified) from sin;' hence, 
 as S. Paul writes, in Romans vi., 'we are dead to sin;' 
 we • were baptized into his death; ' we, ' being planted 
 together, have grown into conformity with his death;' 
 our old man (our Adam nature) was crucified with 
 Him that the body of sin might be rendered pow- 
 erless; 'we died together with Christ;' all these ex- 
 pressions, taken out of a single chapter, are only to 
 be understood in the light of the fact, that Jesus 
 Christ was the second Adam, and that as surely as we 
 all died in Adam, so we all participate in the deeds 
 of the life of the second Adam, if only we make living 
 union with Him and become 'in Christ.' 
 
 Side by side with this marvellous expression of the 
 Gospel of the Grace of God, the salvation of sinners 
 by the incarnation and sacrifice of the Son of God, 
 place the solitary passage to which the index of the 
 text-book of "Christian Science" refers us. Mrs. 
 Eddy knew she must say something of the great un- 
 dertaking of Jesus Christ, sin-bearing; she knew she 
 was writing for people who ' called themselves Chris- 
 tians,' and they must have some explanation of a 
 doctrine they pretended to hold, but of whose won- 
 derful and transforming grace they had had no per- 
 sonal experience; for no one but a counterfeit Chris- 
 tian could a second time read this paragraph. And 
 I appeal to those who are not wholly reprobate, 
 whose eyes the God of this world hath not wholly 
 blinded, to read this passage on p. 358, and say, in 
 
FORGIVENESS OF SIN. 103 
 
 the light of the verses I have above quoted from the 
 Word of God, which alone reveals to us the mystery 
 of the Cross, if this sentence, from the pen of the 
 high-priestess of their profession, is not senseless 
 blasphemy! 
 
 Jesus bore our sins in his own body. He knew the mortal 
 error which constitutes the material body, and could destroy 
 that error; but at the time when Jesus felt our infirmities, he had 
 not conquered all the beliefs of the flesh, or his sense of ma- 
 terial life, nor had he risen to his final demonstration of spiritual 
 power. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 THERE are many other subjects treated of in this 
 book of ' Science and Health,' all of which are 
 as far from the truth as these with which I have 
 dealt, but we have seen sufficient to brand this gospel 
 as ' another gospel,' and not in any sense the Gospel 
 of Jesus Christ. Many persons have tried it, and 
 found it a broken cistern which held no water of 
 life. Several such persons I know, and I asked one of 
 them to write her experience of "Christian Science." 
 She is a lady who is singalarly well read; who pos- 
 sesses one of the most capacious memories I have 
 ever found; who for long gave herself to all that 
 ' mind culture ' which is so sought after by the women 
 of this generation. God led her out of darkness into 
 his glorious light through the ministry of this Church; 
 so that she is a competent witness to the compara- 
 tive values of the Gospel of "Christian Science" and 
 the Gospel S. Paul preached. 
 
 " My life has been a busy one, in professional work, 
 which required me to spend all my spare time in 
 study. Religions and philosophies chiefly engaged 
 my attention. One by one these failed to be con- 
 clusive or restful. 'The Spirit of God moved upon 
 the face of the v/atcrs.' So now in the soul of man, 
 
CONCLUSION. 105 
 
 Light must reveal the chaos and create the desire for 
 order ('as it was in the beginning, is now.') In my 
 chaotic state of mind, 'Christian Science' appealed to 
 me as being more spiritual than most religions. It 
 offered much enjoyment to a person of trained mind, 
 quick perceptions, and some degree of culture. But 
 from these lessons I went out among the people who 
 were burdened with daily toil, sins and sickness. 
 They could not read the books I lent them. They 
 could not understand the lessons. Yet their hearts 
 were hungry, like mine, for food. And when I asked 
 my teacher how the scrub-woman or the twelve-hours- 
 a-day fireman could find this perpetual elevation of 
 soul necessary to the faith, the answer was: 'They 
 can't, till they rise out of that life." Then there were 
 the sick and the sin-sick. What could my ' Christian 
 Science' say to this girl, hopelessly pleading for 
 peace ? ' Sin has no existence — sickness no reality; ' 
 could I say that? Not in the very face of her misery! 
 I dared not say that." 
 
 "And I began to wonder, Has 'Christian Science' 
 anything like that wondrous word, ' Neither do I 
 condemn thee; go in peace?' Everywhere this prob- 
 lem met me. And the answer of the teacher was: 
 ' You can do such people no good. They are not 
 yet ready for the Truth.' Because of this growing 
 un-christian lack of sympathy in me, I began to 
 doubt the value of the ' Christian Science ' Faith." 
 
 " It was said of Jesus, ' the common people heard 
 Him gladly.' This new faith might still be the truth 
 of Science, but I began to omit the first word of the 
 name." 
 
 "Thegreg-ter reason for my rejection of thjg re- 
 
106 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 ligion, was the internal evidence of the spirit, in the 
 torture of conscience. 'Christian Science' claimed 
 to be based upon the Bible as its authority. I read 
 the first great commandment, ' Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart,' etc. But the 
 teachers objected to ' Lord ' as implying personality. 
 I must love with all my heart — Principle. I could 
 think of the dear ones long dead, as at rest in Nature, 
 sooner than at rest in Principle. This Principle, 
 was pure Holiness and Truth. Then came the ques- 
 tion : Do I honestly love, with all my heart — Holi- 
 ness ? And Conscience, not wholly dead, of course 
 answered, No ! What then ? ' Science ' answered : 
 ' You must deny utterly all sin in yourself. You 
 cannot sin. There is no such thing as sin. It is un- 
 real.' But the torture of conscience was very real." 
 
 " Then I read again in my Bible, ' This is life 
 Eternal to know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus 
 Christ.' I stopped there." 
 
 "'Christian Science' had told me of God, that is, 
 Principle. It had told me of Christ ; that, too, is 
 Principle. But of Jesus, ' Science ' had said : ' He 
 was a living person, who once walked and talked and 
 loved as we do.' Here was what the hungry heart 
 wanted; a living Friend to know and believe in. The 
 'Scientist' said, 'Jesus, the man.' But the Bible 
 does not separate the words; it says 'Jesus Christ, 
 whom to know is Life Eternal.' And my heart 
 quickly answered to this, ' If I may only know Him! ' 
 And I began to read the Gospel story of Jesus Christ, 
 and there was then something to say to tired, sick 
 people. They could understand those stories of that 
 life in Galilee." 
 
CONCLUSION. 107 
 
 " ' Science ' proved itself a beautiful thing for sunny 
 days; but it failed me in my sorest need. And so 
 when people tell me they are happy in the study of 
 'Christian Science,' my heart replies, 'Yes! you are 
 happy, while as yet you see no end.' But it has an 
 end. And He has said: 'This (not some other faith) 
 is Life Eternal, to know Him and Jesus Christ.'" 
 
 "The difference is as light to darkness; He led me 
 out of darkness into his marvellous light, and now I 
 know the reality of what 8. Paul tells us, that our 
 hearts cannot conceive the joy God has in store for 
 those who love Him. And my daily prayer is, that all 
 who are seeking peace, through 'Christian Science' 
 teachings, may be led on through that desert to the 
 Waters of Life." 
 
 The truth that there is in " Christian Science " 
 is this : The healings it affects are the natural con- 
 sequences of the power of mind over matter, thought 
 and will over body. The processes it adopts happen 
 to be peculiarly favorable to direct ' suggestion ' to 
 the affected part. The sitting quiet ; the banishing 
 from the mind all extraneous subjects ; shutting the 
 eyes ; the soft voice of the healer ; the repetition of 
 meaningless sentences, the intelligence is not stirred 
 by them, there is nothing which can cause the mind 
 to work ; it is a sort of stroking the mind until it 
 drowsily purrs, leaving the repeated 'suggestion' po- 
 tent ; this is a mode of mesmerizing. All this con- 
 tributes to stimulate that nerval force, or at least to 
 allow it free course, which, in certain classes of dis- 
 ease, is all that is needful for a return to health. 
 
 We hear of the peace " Christian Scientists ' affirm 
 they acquire. This is the result of that meditative 
 
108 "A WAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT." 
 
 quiet which is the great resource of the profession. 
 The Quakers attained it. They spoke softly, they 
 walked slowly, they sat in silence long, their dress 
 was of soft fabrics and of neutral colors, and all this 
 contributed to allay that irritation which the attrition 
 of jvery-day life is so apt to produce. 
 
 Let any one deliberately retire for only half an 
 hour, daily, and sit still, communing with their own 
 hearts, and doing nothing, looking at nothing ; and 
 it is astonishing how quickly will come evenness of 
 disposition. 
 
 And in fine, though I say it with a sad heart, one 
 main reason of the spread of this delusion is, that it 
 gives a host of people a means of notoriety and even 
 emolument, who without it, would neither attain 
 the one nor gain the other. It very rarely appeals 
 either to the really educated on one hand, or to the 
 uneducated on the other ; but its natural habitat is 
 in that vast class of people who lie between, who have 
 little cultivated the power of thought, and cannot 
 keep in mental view two ideas at a time, and there- 
 fore are unable to draw sound deductions. 
 
 It is a very curious sight, and one which affords 
 much serious reflection to the sociologist, to see such 
 a number of intelligent people, listening constantly 
 to assertions their hourly experience contradicts ; 
 being assured of the power of the theory to banish 
 sickness, when the vast majority of attempted cures 
 wholly fail; to hear them ever lauding self- repression 
 but never doing those works of kindness and charity 
 which are the usual offspring of unselfishness; and 
 to see them gathering to listen to ' Readings,' which 
 are nonsensical. To the sincere Christian, it is a sad 
 
CONCLUSION. 109 
 
 and painful sight to see people 'hewing out for them- 
 selves broken cisterns, which can contain no water,' 
 when at their very doors there is bursting and bub- 
 bling that well of ' the water of life,' which the God, 
 who loves us with an everlasting love, has graciously 
 opened in our midst for 'sin and for uncleanness; ' 
 wherefore, then, dost thou not ask of Him and He 
 will give thee living water, that thou mayest drink 
 and live forever ? 
 
 This almost cursory examination of a deeply in- 
 teresting subject has brought under our notice 
 much food for reflection. Here is a theory which has 
 been accepted by 200,000 persons, and is by them 
 being propagated with an ardour which is not a little 
 astonishing. A large proportion of these thousands 
 have undoubtedly been relieved from ailments more 
 or less irritating. In very many of these cases, ample 
 opportunity was given to the ordinary medical prac- 
 tice to try its nostrums, and without effect. 
 
 We believe an honest perusal of the foregoing pages, 
 especially if the investigation be continued in the 
 direction indicated, will lead to the conviction that 
 all these cures have been of disorders due to some 
 disorganization of the nerval system. That this mas- 
 terly power of nerve force, which holds so high a 
 position in the commonwealth of our bodies, is emi- 
 nently under the governance of the will. That this 
 will is not always under the direction of conscious- 
 ness, but appears to be also the executive of that de- 
 partment of the mind which may be called 'the subject- 
 ive mind.' That this mind can receive suggestions, 
 and put them into effect even better than when con- 
 sciousness, and reason, its trained servitor, direct the 
 
no "AWAY THAT SEEMETH RIGHT.' 
 
 will to require the obedience. That if when in an hyp- 
 notic sleep, this ' subjective mind' receives a sugges- 
 tion, of which nothing is remembered upon awaken- 
 ing, it will put it into practice, if it possibly can, 
 without the intervention of the conscious will. 
 
 And more than this, this power can be invoked, 
 when the subject is not actually put to sleep mes- 
 merically; but that when the mind is partially un- 
 conscious, then the 'subjective mind,' liberated, as 
 it were, from the necessity of being in attendance 
 upon the active intelligence, follows the direction of 
 the • suggestion ' impressed upon it, and goes about 
 to set to rights the nerval defection. 
 
 It would be strange, indeed, if a profession ever 
 upon the alert to discover remedies for disorders, 
 and alleviations for distress, should refuse to learn 
 from the lessons that " Christian Science " undoubt- 
 edly teaches. It is high time that, in the medical 
 curriculum, room should be made for the study of the 
 power of the will to rectify bodily disorder. It has 
 been said that hypnotism is too dread a power, and 
 as yet too uncontrollable, to be used indiscriminately; 
 but how many poisons are in daily use by the medi- 
 cal practitioner, and in his educated hand are of the 
 greatest therapeutic benefit ? Let the men whose 
 life-work it is to gather for us every healing expe- 
 rience, give their attention, to dissect out of the woof 
 and web of this blurred fabric of " Christian Science " 
 the golden thread which leads to the secret of the 
 cures so numerously performed, and let another 
 department be definitely added to therapeutics. 
 Meanwhile, let the law require that no " Christian 
 Science" healer, or others of that sort, shall under- 
 
CONCLUSION. Ill 
 
 take to treat any sick person who has not consulted 
 a properly authorized practitioner, to ascertain the 
 nature of the disease, that it be not of a sort likely 
 to terminate fatally. 
 
 For let death occur, and whatever the remorse, the 
 traveller will not return from that bourne. 
 
 This authoritative investigation would tend to refer 
 the curative power to its proper source, and deliver 
 many well-meaning people from accepting teachings 
 at variance with those truths upon which they have 
 always been taught to place dependence. It would, 
 indeed, seem that S. Paul had in his mind erratic 
 theories of this sort when he wrote to Timothy: "Now 
 the Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times 
 some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to 
 seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils." 
 
 There are those who say, that it is of little moment 
 what we believe, if only we are in earnest and live de- 
 cently. But to reach any destination chiefly depends 
 upon the accuracy of our knowledge as to whether the 
 road we are travelling will lead us to the place whither 
 we would go. Energy, determination and persever- 
 ance on the wrong road, can only lead us further 
 away from the goal. How wrong the religious ven- 
 tures of Mrs. Eddy are, we have seen. They are all 
 the more dangerous because they adopt the air and 
 language of Scripture. They profess to take their 
 whole authority from the Word of God, and seem to 
 readily agree with the dicta of revelation. But, as 
 the wisest of the sons of men well said : " There is a 
 way that seemeth right unto a man : but the end 
 thereof are the ways of death," Proverbs xvi., 25.