' vvi \6e ; IS to MENTAL ASSASSINATION OR CHRISTIAN SCIENCE k Physical Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual Peril . BY I. M. HALDEMAN, D.D. Pastor First Baptist Church K«w York Ct? TEN CENTS SECOND THOUSAND CHARLES C. COOK 150 Nassau Street, New York 1910 y Mental Assassination OR CHRISTIAN SCIENCE A Physical, Intellectual, Moral and Spiritual Peril BY 1. M. HALDEMAN, D.D. Pastor First Baptist Church New York City TEN CENTS New York CHARLES C. COOK >9io All Rights Reserved Mental Assassination By I. M. HALDEMAN, D.D. Pastor First Baptist Church New Yorfc City Recently, the words “Mental Assassination” have been reported in the daily journals and repeated in conversation from one end of the country to the other. Assassination! That is an ugly word. It brings a thrill, a shiver. It has in itself the power to depict a scene. It is night. A figure comes gliding down through the shadows of the street. It stops and contemplates a certain house. Then it moves with stealthy step to the rear of the; building. A window is softly opened. Now the figure is standing inside the dining room. The dark lantern is lit. A subdued ray shows the gleam of something steel-like in the man’s hand. His feet are shod with slippers. He finds the stairs. He goes up the steps with a tread as light and noiseless as a thirsty tiger seeking its prey. He enters the sleeping room. 4 MENTAL ASSASSINATION The long, regular breathing tells that the owner of the house is deep in sleep. The light from the lantern is turned on enough to show the location of the sleeper’s heart. There is a quick down-stroke, a strange thud, as when a knife strikes human flesh—a moan —and the hideous thing vanishes from the room—gathers its booty and disappears as it came. The next morning the streets are ring¬ ing with the newsboy’s cry, “Man murdered. Man assassinated.” But this word “assassination” is qualified. It is not assassination alone but, “Mental” assassination. The qualificative does not mod¬ ify the force of the word, it intensifies it. It does not take away the fact of death, it makes it all the more terrible. It announces a new instrumentality, it reveals a sure and subtle skill. The new instrumentality is mind. It is assassination produced by the operation of mind upon mind. Mental power is brought to bear upon another till the personality of that other is affected, the will power and the de¬ cision paralyzed. The person so affected can¬ not walk down stairs without risk of falling or stumbling, without danger to life or limb, can¬ not cross a street or get on a car without im¬ minent peril. The nervous system yields to the strain. It grows weak, fear becomes a torment, the mental pressure is terrific, there is a collapse, and the victim dies—has been MENTAL ASSASSINATION 5 assassinated, killed, murdered, just as much as though stabbed to death by a knife in the murderer’s hand. This is mental assassination! Is such a thing possible? It is said to be possible. It is said to be actually true. A particular person, a young married woman, at her home one night, felt a strange, cold, icy blast blowing upon her, chilling her to the very heart. She plunged into hot baths, but could not arrest the icy chill. She under¬ stood what it was. A person she knew well, at that time distant many miles from her, one who had been her teacher in mental culture, in spite of the great distance that separated them, was now exercising malicious animal magnetism, was sending mental death waves upon her. She felt herself being paralyzed, upon the very threshold of death. She took up her New Testament and tried to read it as an antidote to this mental assault. At that moment her husband came in. He was the picture of terror, every nerve was unstrung. In getting off the train he barely escaped a fatal accident. He felt he was being pursued, hounded, by some strange, unseen force, to his own destruction. All this is related with evident sincerity, with an intensity of dramatic fervor, with minuteness of detail and a sense of horrorism 6 MENTAL ASSASSINATION which surpasses even the language and the method of a Poe. Is it true? No matter whether it be true or not, such a concept is a disaster to any community. For any considerable body of men and women to believe in such a thing and be affected by it, living in constant dread as though the assassin were upon their tracks, looking with suspicion upon every face, and shivering in anticipation of the fatal but unseen blow, such a concept is a moral as well as intellectual disaster to any community. But if such a concept should arise from the midst of a system of religion, it would be enough to damn that religion, no matter though it came in the name of God and his Christ, and were borne to the door of every house on arch-angelic wings and amid the burst of high hosannas from angelic choirs. And this concept does arise from the midst of a professedly religious system. It arises from the midst of that system known as Christian Science. Christian Science gives occasion to this concept because it belongs to the category of mental operation. It gives rise to it because in its final analysis Christian Science is a lawless and exaggerated hypno¬ tism. Hypnotism is the operation of mind upon mind through the law of suggestion. A certain individual has a fancy that he cannot MENTAL ASSASSINATION 7 go down the street beyond a fixed point. At this point he balks and will go no farther. He has all sorts of reasons about it and cannot be persuaded to change his resolution. A friend who has an exceptionally strong will and a compelling power of mind suggests to him that he is guilty of a great absurdity, that there is every reason for him to repudiate his fancy and go beyond the hindering spot and, finally, prevails upon him to go. Another has a splitting headache or some nervous dis¬ order that incapacitates him for work. He is continually talking about his ailments to others. He makes a cult of them. He is wholly taken up with them. His friends fall into the habit of inquiring about them, dis¬ cussing them. His ills in reality become his occupation till he is nothing bettered but al¬ ways worse. A strong minded and strong willed friend determines to cure him. He be¬ gins by telling him how well he looks. He persists in telling him that. He suggests that he shows evidence of increased strength and vigor. He laughs at the idea of any real dis¬ ease, declares he needs more exercise, points out the very exercise he ought to take. So constant is he in the suggestion of health and strength that the sick man yields. He begins to think himself that he is well. Finally, he says he is well. Soon he is so taken up with his “wellness” that he forgets his illness. He 8 MENTAL ASSASSINATION is actually well. He finds his normal condi¬ tion. It is the case of the substitution of one will power for another, the weaker is rein¬ forced by the stronger. Having no definite will of his own, he has been in the flotsam and the jetsam of his own weakness and the mis¬ directed wills of others. Having at last yielded to the strong will which suggests the positive health attitude, he is dominated and governed by it. It is an issue of wills. Christian Science takes up this issue. It divides humanity into two classes of wills, the dominant and the submissive wills. The dom¬ inant wills are the possible healers, the sub¬ missive wills are the patients. The aim of Christian Science is to cultivate each of these wills. It would increase the power of domi¬ nance in the one and the state of submissive¬ ness in the other. It is on this principle of the stronger and the weaker will that it seeks to produce its cures and extend its influence. And it has a basis on which to proceed. There is in each human being a greater or less de¬ posit by nature of curative forces. Every phy¬ sician knows that it is not his drug, his remedy, which finally accomplishes the cure, it is nature herself. The best any physician can do is to appeal to these forces, free them from their cloggings or hindrances and get them to work. On this foundation of the cura MENTAL ASSASSINATION 9 naturae Christian Science operates. Through the law of suggestion it leads the patient to appeal to the curative forces within him and permit them to act unhinderedly. It does not tell the patient that this is the process. It seeks to lead him to deny the existence of his sickness. It seeks by establishing the idea of negation, to allow the positivism of nature to assert itself; taking the hindering, objecting will of the sick man out of the way, the will that clogs and bars the true activities of the body, it points to the results of nature’s loyal response to the yielded will and claims its proposition of no sickness proved. All this of course is mainly true and in lim¬ ited degree in the region of nervous disorders. So far, Christian Science has not restored a lost eye or a lost limb. Nevertheless, it must be noted that Mrs. Eddy claims these things can be done. She tells us in her monumental text book, “Christian Science and Health,” that the lobster has no mind, and, just because it has no mind, when it loses a claw it imme¬ diately replaces it by another. Mrs. Eddy asserts that the moment we can minimize the capacity of our mind, the moment we can reach the mental state of the lobster, we shall be able at will to replace any member of our body lost by accident or the surgeon’s knife. Be that as it may, it is evident that the opera¬ tion of a strong will upon a weaker may lead 10 MENTAL ASSASSINATION it through the law of suggestion to bring about deliverance from many nervous troubles. But it ought to be equally evident that if this mental operation can produce a certain degree of good, it can also produce an enor¬ mous amount of evil. It ought to be clear that if any combination of strong minds and wills should be concentrated upon another mind and will; if the individual upon whom this influence was discharged had faith in the power of these minds and, at the same time, was pervaded by an intense and constant fear —it ought to be plain enough that the indi¬ vidual under such assault would yield, might fall into a state of will paralysis, break down, become a mental wreck and die. Thus the en¬ trance of one will into and pervading the mind and will of another, is precisely like the robber or the assassin who stealthily enters the home of another. The very idea that one personality can be invaded, possessed, obsessed by the personality of another, is disintegrating, de¬ moralizing and, in proportion as it is ex¬ panded and made a fact of experience, be¬ comes an unspeakable menace, an indescriba¬ ble physical danger to the community. Thus Christian Science is a Physical Peril. Christian Science is not only a physical peril, it is intellectual bankruptcy. If to-day the teachers in our public schools were teaching that there is no chemistry, no MENTAL ASSASSINATION 11 mathematics, no applied science, the result to the scholars would be intellectual disintegra¬ tion and disaster. It would mean mental and intellectual bankruptcy. Christian Science is doing that very thing! It teaches that there is no chemistry, no mathematics, no applied science. It teaches all this by and through its fundamental propo¬ sition that there is no matter, that matter does not exist. If there is no matter there surely can be no chemistry. There are no original and radical elements, no qualities or distinct properties. There are no affiinities, no repul¬ sions, no possible combinations, mixtures or products. To say that one thing is a gas, an¬ other a salt; that one thing is fluid and another solid; that there are deposits and precipitates, is absurd; for, as there is no matter, there can be neither chemical properties nor substance. None of these things exist. Chemistry as a science, as a fact, is no better than the baseless fabric of a dream. If there is no matter there can be no mathe¬ matics, no addition, no minus and plus, no multiplication or division, no weight, density, form, measure, ratio or proportion. There can be no construction, no relation of part to part, no distance, no transit over that distance, no constructed means of locomotion. There can be no possible calculation. Astronomers tell us that the second on an astronomical 12 MENTAL ASSASSINATION meridian is equal to the twentieth part of the thickness of a hair, and that by means of this second, when used as the parallax of a star, its distance of over four billions of miles from our world may be accurately determined. Great mathematicians tell us that the undula¬ tion of the yellow ray of sodium is equal to the 590 millionth of a millimeter and should be used as the invariable standard of measure with which to compute the infinite distances of the heavenly bodies. But if there is no matter, then there is no sodium. If there is no sodium certainly there is no yellow ray. Where there is no yellow ray there can be no undulation thereof. Where there is no undu¬ lation there is no measure and the suggested standard, the 590 millionth of a millimeter, is a fanciful fiction. No such computation or calculation is possible. Calculation itself is impossible. Without calculation there is an end of mathematics. There is, therefore, no such thing as mathematics. Mathematics do not exist. Christian Science teaches all that in deny¬ ing matter. Such teaching is intellectual bankruptcy. It is more than that, it is moral bankruptcy. The logic of no matter means that the uni¬ verse is a deception. All creation is a lie. Nothing we see, or hear, or touch, or feel is true. Our whole environment is a falsehood. MENTAL ASSASSINATION 13 That sunrise is a falsehood, a rank deception. Turn your gaze to the eastern sky. It is domed with darkness. Suddenly, the dark¬ ness is shot through and through to the zenith with arrows of light, each arrow tipped with gold and turning to streams of crimson fire. The blackness breaks into masses of grey clouds, and these flee away like scattered squadrons of a frightened foe before the on¬ coming of the king. The great dome is changed to a canopy of infinite blue. Other clouds rise and sweep forward like the king’s retainers, clothed with fleece such as kings wear, fringed with purple and amethyst and heavy with gold. The sun rises, at first a thin rim of quivering glory on the low hori¬ zon, afterwards a blazing circumference, fill¬ ing all the world of earth and sky with out¬ spreading splendor; and then, at last, with the assured power of measureless strength, as¬ cending regally to that upper throne where for the day he reigns supreme. And all this is a lie, a deception, an error of mortal mind. Every ray of silver flashing, every gleam of golden glory, is proclaiming to our attentive souls that we have been fooled, deceived and trifled with—there is no sunrise and no wealth of changing color. Look at the sunset. View it from the deck of ship in mid-ocean. The great ball of fire swings slowly down to 14 MENTAL ASSASSINATION touch the wave, and then, turning to a wheel of fire, burns its deep rut of flame into the breaking wave, the waters rising up to swal¬ low its palpitating circumference, and the night dropping down from above to draw over it the deep darkness, as when a hood is drawn over the face of one condemned; there is a quiver of light like a great voiceless protest— then it is gone as a lamp blown out in a sudden wind, and far upward in the night sky the calm stars serenely watch where a blazing world has been. But every ray of splendor from that sinking sun, every flame of color from that slow descending world, is a falsehood. There is no sunset, there is no color, there is no sun. Mark that storm at sea. Note how the heavens bend down. A dark cloud like a giant hand reaches to the very depths and entrails of the sea, gathers the waves in its fist, lifts them and flings them till they fall and rise again, bellowing as wild beasts bellow. The winds let loose among them like unseen tormentors with roaring voices and smiting whip-lashes, drive them in a tumult against each other, filling them with foam and fury, and sending them to dash themselves with crash and thunder and hoarse cryings on the sounding shore, dragging with them masts and spars of sinking ships and bodies of drowning men and women. MENTAL ASSASSINATION 15 And all this scene is a lie—an unreal thing. No waves ever break, no winds ever wail, or cry, or sweep, no storm ever thunders above land or sea. There is neither land nor sea; for, there is no matter. That glorious landscape! It is four o’clock of a summer’s afternoon. The hills are all a-swoon in the soft encircling haze. The tree tops are turned to velvet browns and dusky greens. The brook babbles lazily on its shining, rippling way, each whitened pebble gleaming up through the parted silver of its flow. You lie stretched at ease in the shadows amid the sedgy grass and hear the hum of insect life, and dream your¬ self in a world where foreheads have no wrinkles and hearts no care. Well-a-day! it is all a dream. From first to last it is all a dream. There is no noisy brook, no hills that lie in misty depths, no over-arching sky of kindly blue. It is all a falsehood of those ly¬ ing things we call the senses. Yes, all is deception and arrant falsehood, a mean, deceiving hypocrisy—the clasp of hands, the touch of lips, the voice of promise, the covenant oath, the men and women and laughing children whom you meet. That woman with the rounded form, the classic con¬ tour, the shape divine, eyes whose depths draw down your soul, and whose hands reach out to claim you as her own and make quick 16 MENTAL ASSASSINATION profit of your soft surrendered will; that man with the torso of an Apollo, the brow of an Olympian god, the gesture of imperial power; that child with the sun-kissed ringlets and mouth of rosebud and smiles of innocence; these, with song of birds and fragrance oi flowers; these things of earth, and all the shin¬ ing things of night which in that upper heaven we call the starry worlds—these are rank de¬ ceptions, creations of mortal error, founda¬ tionless in fact, figments of fancy, the fading spectres, the unreal ghosts of unreal and empty things. And what does this environment of illusion, of delusion, deception and falsehood mean? It means the universe in which we supposedly live is making, not for righteousness, but foi unrighteousness. This seeming creation by which we are surrounded being a falsehood in¬ spires to falsehood concerning ourselves. It is impossible to live in a world where all we see, hear, feel and touch, is untrue, without being inspired to untruth ourselves. Being un¬ der obligation to deny as real every out¬ ward and visible fact, our relation to ourselves and to each other can be only one continued falsehood, one maze, one round of deception, hypocrisy and false pretence. ' This is the logic of that fundamental propo¬ sition of Christian Science—no matter. Such a system with such a proposition MENTAL ASSASSINATION 17 means intellectual bankruptcy and moral deg¬ radation. Christian Science is a paralysis. It is a paralysis of all the sweet humanities, of all the helpful amenities of mortal life. It enables a mother to look with cold in¬ difference on the crushed, bleeding form of her child, crushed and bleeding from a fright¬ ful accident and say, “There is no accident. There is no matter. There is no pain. My child does not suffer." It enables the wife to look with unmoved calmness while her husband tosses in ^the throes of fever and say, with even speech, He does not suffer. There is no fever; for there is no matter in which fever can burn. Nay! the truth is—actually—he does not have a body at all.” It enables men and women to walk amid the sorrowing and the troubled and shed no tears, because they deny the existence of sorrow, 01 want, or woe. It is true, that the clasp of a hand has helped many a weak soul to fight another battle. It is true, that in this busy life, a kind and sympathetic word spoken at the right moment has helped men and women to stand true and steadfast in the hour oi trial. It is true, that a tear of fellowship with another’s sorrow has sweetened the bitterness of that soul and enabled him to sing his song 18 MENTAL ASSASSINATION of hope in the night of despair and go for¬ ward to a better day; but this system, this professed religion, this Christian Science, par¬ alyzes all that. It denies the right of any human heart to have sympathy, or consideration for another’s pain or woe. It teaches that to speak a word of sympathy, to let fall a tear, to weep with those who weep, to own and try to bear the burden under which another falls, is to sus¬ tain the false idea that men and women do have cares or sorrows or such things as heart ache and pain. Christian Science repudiates all this humanness and turns men and women into cold-blooded, self-centered, pulseless ego¬ tists ; and if it could influence all the human race to its inhuman conclusions, it would cre¬ ate a world from which the angels of mercy and love would flee in horror as from the midst of a race of frozen monsters. Yes, Christian Science paralyzes all that makes humanity helpful and attractive: all that saves the race from becoming a mob of incarnate devils. Christian Science is a system of absolute immorality. What would you say if every minister in the land were teaching that lying, cheating, swearing, drunkenness, robbery and murder were not crimes; that there was no sin in any of these things? MENTAL ASSASSINATION 19 And yet that is just what Christian Science is teaching. Christian Science teaches that lying, cheat¬ ing, swearing, drunkenness, robbery and mur¬ der are not crimes; that there is no sin in them. You hold up your hands in horror and say, “Nay! it cannot be. No such system would dare to come before an enlightened com¬ munity and teach that.” But Christian Science does do that. Christian Science teaches that, because Christian Science says there is no such thing as sin. Just as much as the proposition that matter does not exist is fundamental to Chris¬ tian Science, so is the proposition that there is no sin. Again and again Christian Science repeats that postulate. Over and over again in every imaginable form of statement it pro¬ claims that sin is not a fact, that there is no fact, no actuality in sin. Sin is a false con¬ cept, it does not exist at all. Now, if there is no such thing as sin, if sin does not exist, then no act of any kind can be sin. The man who fails to meet the standards of righteousness and truth, the woman who al¬ lows the ermine of her chastity to be soiled, have committed no sin. No matter what the world’s standards may be; no matter what the judgments of courts may pronounce; no 20 MENTAL ASSASSINATION matter what the legal, physical, moral, or penal consequences of any act may be, there is no sin. It will not do to say that the false idea that sin exists produces evil results. It is impossible! As there is no sin, no actual evil of any sort, no matter what the concept, the consequences cannot be evil or sinful; for, here is a proposition that is utterly inviolable, it is this: where there is no fact of sin there can be no act of sin. What then must be the actual moral. con¬ dition of an inner expert circle of Christian Science where men and women do not be¬ lieve there is any such fact as sin; and that no matter what the concept, or the yielding to the concept may be, there never can be an act that is really sin? What an amazing system by which the dishonored man and the fallen woman may deliver both conscience and con¬ sciousness of every deed, or word, or thought of sin. In all this world there is no system of human thought so packed with the germs, with the bacilli, of casuistic iniquity and soul deception. Christian Science is an unspeakable social wickedness. It denies the need and the exalted place of marriage. It denies the need of marriage as the means for the reproduction of the race. It denies it MENTAL ASSASSINATION 21 on the basis of this far reaching proposition that matter does not exist. . As there is no matter there is no such thing as a human body. As there is no human body, then no man ever begot a child, no woman ever brought it to the birth. As man has never been born and cannot die, the race has neither increased nor decreased. It remains in statu quo. It has, therefore, no need of reproduc¬ tion. Marriage is not a necessity to that end. When a Christian Science wife reaches the high altitude where its much married and di¬ vorced founder now dwells, she will see that the woman who wishes a child has no need of the agency of a human father; all she has to do is to think intensely on the subject and she will bring forth a child; and this child, in the final analysis, will be an idea born of her mental contemplation and brought about by self division—that is to say, on the principle of bacteria. Christian Science wives are to recognize that motherhood in the ordinary sense of the word is not the highest function of a wife. They are to recognize that marriage on a fleshly basis is utterly demoralizing and wholly disturbing to spiritual conception and must— as far as possible—be repudiated. Mother¬ hood, as motherhood has been understood since’ the beginning of the world, must be avoided. 22 MENTAL ASSASSINATION Motherhood avoided!! Motherhood put in the category of that which is below a woman’s highest and noblest function!!! This is the Christian Science idea of moth¬ erhood. Consider, I pray you, God’s idea of mother¬ hood. I wish I could describe it to you. It is night in Judea. It is night above the little town of Bethle¬ hem. The heavens seem washed afresh with the waves of holiness and purity. Each world is as though newly burnished. Out there Orion gleams with his star studded belt. Above him the Pleiades scintillate like a handful of dia¬ monds flung down by the largess of a king. The constellations have sailed in together like a fleet of silver ships from an infinite sea. Two great planets in their rush to shine above the Bethlehem plains have come so near each other that the rim of the one seems indenting the other until they shine and glow like one vast, double star. From the heights far up, a great company of the tall angels of God come down to the borders of the softly sleep¬ ing world. Then a notable star detaches itself from the teeming heavens like a golden lamp let down by invisible chains and unseen mas¬ ter hands. Out of this swinging censer of MENTAL ASSASSINATION 23 flashing light and expanding splendor there floats upon the expectant air an incense of praise never before heard by the sons of men. And now it is the voice of the angelic choir that is heard. They sing and all the earth is still while the strange, heart-compelling music fills the listening ears of startled shepherds keeping their peaceful sheep. They look and they listen with awe-smitten souls, and lo, these stars are throwing down their tribute o light and these glory angels are smgmg their song and lifting their chants above a new born babe. All heaven is moved, all the universe is in commotion, over a babe. Theie in a stable by the way-side is a pure virgin girl and yet—a mother. In her arms she holds the wonder babe. Childhood and motherhood find all heaven bending above them. God, t e Almighty, has selected a woman s life as the gateway by which he might come into this world. The Infinite has become an infant. The eternal fatherhood owns and reveals di¬ vine sonship through human motherhood. From henceforth “Mother" is a holy name and childhood sacred with the touch of God. This is God’s attitude to motherhood and childhood. , , ,, _ ,1 But Christian Science degrades both moth¬ erhood and childhood. It degrades it to the level of merest flesh. In its eyes the love which leads a woman to give herself body and 24 MENTAL ASSASSINATION soul to the man whom she does love; the love which leads a true man to exalt his wife as the purest and most wonderful thing in all the wide world and make her a radiant queen regnant over his life, in Christian Science, after all, is no better than the animalism of the field and the stockyard. Christian Science in principle would lead every young man and every young woman who would reach the farther heights, to set aside the idea of mar¬ riage. In the inner circle of Christian Science marriage is looked upon as on the lower plane of mortal mind and not amid the alpine peaks of spiritual discernment. In order to attain to this altitude of serene deliverance from the flesh, not only should the unmarried continue unmarried, but the married should ignore the marriage bond except in sublimated and ab¬ stract relation. In the nature of the case, therefore, Chris¬ tian Science leads wives to be separated from their husbands and, not infrequently, husbands to be separated from their wives. This sepa¬ ration is not always open but often in the secret of the family circle. Apparently one, and yet as far apart as though living in sun¬ dered worlds. Here is a man who worked and toiled all the day. To him when the day’s work was over the thought of home was as comforting as the hope of a haven to a storm tossed mari- MENTAL ASSASSINATION 25 ner. When he entered the door his wife met him with a kiss, with arms about his neck, with a caress of love and heart’s deep affec¬ tion that were like balm to his aching nerves, like fresh inspiration to his jaded will. But now—how changed all things. Since that wife has become a Christian Scientist, she has been taught that marriage is only to be tol¬ erated, that affection must be abstract and not real; that she must not yield to the maternal sentiment and influence of love. When hei husband meets her she is kind and attentive, but there is an atmosphere between them. To him she seems, indeed, to be living in another world whither he cannot follow her. He no longer receives the kiss, the caress, the re¬ sponse of heart to heart, the unfolding of all the treasures of her love and sympathy. He feels as one who has been chilled by an ic} blast. He goes forth and by and by his feet are found in other paths for promised peace and comfort—and lo—there is a tragedy in that house. Or, it is the husband who has become a Christian Scientist. His wife once looked upon him as the center and circumfeience of her home. It was her joy to love him and give herself wholly to him. But since he .has become a Christian Scientist all that is changed. When he enters the home, he keeps her at a distance. To him she is now not so 26 MENTAL ASSASSINATION much his wife, the companion of his joys, as the subtle temptress of the flesh. If he should yield to her impulsive, natural attitude, she would drag him down, he thinks, to the low level of mortal mind—its fleshly illusions and spiritual destruction. Her heart cries out for love, and all that love may mean to a womanly and maternal heart. He steels himself against it. He dreads a Circe in the woman who wears his name. And she! she pines and shrinks away in an atmosphere that smothers and stifles every generous hope, every true and human impulse. A beautiful woman has told her story to the world. Christian Science entered her home and drew away from her the heart of him whom she loved and whose name she bore, of whose children she was the mother. She warns young women that Christian Science will de¬ stroy their noblest ideals and their purest hopes; that it appeals to the baser passion of self and self’s ways. She exhorts them to turn from it, to shun it as an evil thing, the source of sure and certain woe. Christian Science is a root of bitterness in the home. Men and women have told me and have written to me of the dark shadow in their homes since the blighting thing entered their portals. MENTAL ASSASSINATION 27 Christian Science does not openly forbid marriage. Openly it tolerates it and professes to set guards around it, but in secret discour¬ ages it. It teaches that marriage may for the present continue, but that celibacy is nearer right ’than marriage, the unmarried better than the married state. Left to itself, to work unhinderedly, Chris¬ tian Science will cast disrepute on marriage and break it down. Let it alone and it will overthrow marriage as the great, divine bul¬ wark of human society, the one uplifted dyke that keeps back the inflowing turgid tide of sensualism and black corruption. Christian Science would break down this defence, not all at once, but slowly, insidiously, and surely. When a ship comes to the ports of this country laden with pestilence and contagion, it is quarantined; and I say that this system, a system that gives rise to the suggestion of mental assassination; a system that is intel¬ lectually degrading; a system that paralyzes all the values of human comity, fellowship and sympathy; a system that is downright im¬ morality and actual social wickedness; a sys¬ tem that is a physical, intellectual, moral and social danger, ought to be quarantined and kept from the midst of decent society. But Christian Science is not only a social wickedness, it is a soul destroyer, a spiritual betrayer. It betrays Christianity. It is the 28 MENTAL ASSASSINATION Judas Iscariot of Christianity. It betrays it as Judas Iscariot betrayed the Son of God. Look at that scene of betrayal. It is night. It is half day and half night. You can see the great tree trunks, the old, gnarled olive trees, drawn in sharp silhouette against the changing sky. Men are coming and going with lanterns and staves. And now Judas comes up the green slope of the moun¬ tain. He approaches Jesus. He gives him the all hail and kisses him. Jesus steps back and says rebukingly, “Judas, betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss?" Christian Science conies like Judas. It comes with the all hail of his name upon its lips. It gives him the kiss, and then it be¬ trays him. But it is shrewder than Judas. He sold his Master for thirty pieces of silver; Christian Science sells him for many times thirty pieces of silver. It betrays him while it salutes and kisses him. It betrays him by denying everything for which he stands. Our Lord Jesus Christ stands for the personality of God, for prayer, for atonement by the shedding of blood, the resurrection of the body, ascension to, and session in, heaven, salvation through faith in him, salvation through faith in him and in and through no other, the second coming, final judgment and everlasting punishment of the unrighteous. Christian Science denies all this. MENTAL ASSASSINATION 29 It denies the personality of God. God is not a person. God is only a principle. There is no God in the universe to whom a tired soul may turn and say, “Thou," and call for help. No God in the universe who can look down on that weary soul and say, “Thou art my child, come unto me and rest." It denies prayer. There is nothing for which to pray. No one to whom to pray. It denies the virgin birth. It denies that Jesus was the Christ, denies the reality of his body, teaches that he was not al¬ ways spiritual, not always free from error. He never made atonement on the cross. His shed blood was of no more avail than when flowing in his veins. He never shed his blood. He never died on the cross. While the world thought he was dead and bound in the tomb, he was alive, hiding from the gaze of men. He never ascended to heaven. At that point of so-called ascension he disappeared. He ceased to exist. He does not exist to-day. The Jesus idea has given way to the Christ idea. There is no heaven, heaven is only a state of mind. There is no judgment to come. There is no hell, and there are none who are lost. No one needs to be saved from sin. . In Holy Scripture it is written, “This is a faith¬ ful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Tesus came into the world to save sin¬ ners." Christian Science takes up that scrip¬ ture and makes it to say, “Christ Jesus came 30 MENTAL ASSASSINATION into the world not to save sinners, bnt to save them from believing they were sinners.” Christian Science denies the Bible. It de¬ nies it as the infallible Word of God. It teaches that the Bible is a book full of errors, full of fables and fictions. It cannot be read safely without the key which Mrs. Eddy has invented. That key is her book, “Christian Science and Health,” printed and sold at three dollars and a half a copy. No Christian Scientist must read the Bible apart from that book. Each Christian Scientist must purchase a copy. No Christian Scientist must lend or give away a copy. Christian Science by throwing doubts on the value of the Bible, charging it with error and falsehood, testi¬ fying that it has been put together and com¬ piled by men who were in the darkness of mortal mind, making it necessary to read “Christian Science and Health” in order that its fables and follies may be revealed and that the reader may not be led astray—Christian Science in doing all this, seeks steadily and subtly to betray the very citadel of truth. Follow Christian Science and sooner or later you will reject the Bible. Christian Science is Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot rolled into one. It has all the treason of Benedict Arnold and all the sordid¬ ness of Judas Iscariot. Compare the founder of Christianity with MENTAL ASSASSINATION 31 the founder of Christian Science. Look at the birth of Jesus. He was born in a road¬ side kahn. He was so poor that he wore a seamless robe, the common, every day badge of poverty. He was so poor, as he himself said, that the birds of the air had nests and the foxes had holes, but the Son of man had not where to lay his head. He owned no real estate. He found his food sometimes in a cornfield, and when he died was buried in a borrowed grave. But look at the founder of Christian Sci¬ ence. She owns real estate and plenty of it. She has had a beautiful home, and all the comfort and luxury of a well conducted busi¬ ness. She has recently settled a lawsuit in which she paid over some hundreds of thous¬ ands of dollars. Jesus went forth and healed the sick with¬ out money and without price. This woman draws her income from the money of her dupes. Jesus went among the poor and the lowly. It was said of him, ‘This man receiveth sin¬ ners, and eateth with them.” Christian Sci¬ ence does not go among the poor and the out¬ cast. It would not dare to do so. It dare not go into the tenement where men and women on the poorest food are barely living; where misery and disease do their deadly and their daily work. It would not dare to tell 32 MENTAL ASSASSINATION the woman burning with the fever of starva¬ tion that she is not sick, that she has no fever and needs no food. It dare not go into the wretched hovel where a broken hearted mother weeps above the only treasure she had, and the only solace of her aching days—her little babe. It dare not go to her and say the child is not dead, that, in fact, she never had a child—she never had more than an ideal, and all she has to do is to recall her ideal senti¬ ment and she will be happy. Look at this man, crushed, bleeding, every bone in his body broken, unconscious, breath¬ ing out his last breath while his wife, clad in her thin dress, and with her pinched cheeks, moans and croons above him and calls aloud the name to which he will never more respond. Tell me a Christian Scientist dare go to the silent crowd standing awe-struck above the mass of bleeding flesh and broken bones and say with cheerful and vibrant voice that the man is not hurt, he is not bleeding, not a bone of him is broken, he has never fallen, there has been no accident. A Christian Scientist dare not do that in such a crowd. If the Christian Scientist did dare do it and were a man, he would be driven from the midst with blows and bootings; if it were a woman, they would mock her and insult her as a disgrace to that sex which ought to stand for all there is of love, of sympathy and tender help. MENTAL ASSASSINATION 33 Christian Science is not only a system of treason and betrayal, it is the most monumen¬ tal system ever invented to fool the people. It fools Christians who are more taken up with their body than with their soul; who know more about the word of man than the Word of God. It fools the unsaved because it substitutes the cure of the body for the salvation of the soul, and makes the deliverance of the body equivalent to the redemption of the soul. It fools the unsaved by assuring thern that they are already saved, guaranteeing their security for a price current with the times. It fools people generally and mainly because it comes on the same basis as any other patent medicine, bringing in its testimonials as evi¬ dence of cure, appealing to that which is ever the most quick to respond—the hope of re¬ lief from physical ills. It fools the people by talking about religion, offering its book as materia medica and turn¬ ing its treatment into the exercise of a paid dispensary. Christian Science is a false pretence. It pretends to be spiritual and to deny the animal, to be occupied with the soul and not with the body, and then finds its most lucra¬ tive field in the realm of the animal and the cure of the body. It denies matter, and builds churches of marble and granite. It denies 34 MENTAL ASSASSINATION matter, and prints its teachings in a material book and sells it for material dollars.. It de¬ nies the existence of evil, and one of its most prominent teachers has been tried for error. It denies accident or possible danger, and yet its founder was removed from one house to another in a special car—one locomotive pre¬ ceding the train and another following to keep the track clear. It denies the changes of temperature, and its founder was lifted out of her carriage carefully wrapped in sealskin, so it is reported, and borne by stalwart arms into the building from which she has never since been seen to emerge alone. It denies death, and is responsible for the suggestion of mental assassination. Christian Science is a perversion of divine order. God has set up headship in man. He has set it up in the family, in government, and in the church. In the public assembly of the church he has forbidden a woman to teach or to speak. He has commanded her to. keep silence. Christian Science is a repudiation of this order. Christian Science exhorts a woman to break the divine command concern¬ ing silence and teaching. Christian Science exists because a woman did not keep silence, and because she persisted in her rebellious de¬ termination to speak and to teach. Christian Science is distinctively a female system. It is MENTAL ASSASSINATION 35 the peculiar invention of a woman. Its teach¬ ers and healers are women. It has in it here and there a class of male representatives. A certain witty dean once said that society was divided into three classes, males, females and priests. Christian Science is divided into females and some men with female ten¬ dencies. The Devil fooled the world through the first woman, he is now trying to fool the world through another woman. He led it into sin through the first woman, he would lead it away from the remedy of sin through the other woman. Christian Science has one supreme aim. Its aim is to take away Jesus Christ as the alone saviour of men. It denies his actual birth, repudiates him as the Christ, makes him to be as full of errors as other mortals, re¬ jects the atonement of the cross, says he never died, never was buried and never rose, does not exalt his name above every name, refuses to bow to him as Lord and God, teaches that he does not sit upon the infinite throne, and that he is not in heaven at all. In short, it turns his body into an apparition, his blood to nothingness, his cross to a myth, his death to a fiction, his burial to a mockery, and him¬ self to a personality that never was real and no longer exists. . . Christian Science is a peril of perils. It is a peril to the health and security of a 36 MENTAL ASSASSINATION community. It is a peril to it because it re¬ pudiates the system of medicine, the skill of the physician, throws the sick into the hands of charlatans, binds them up in the bonds of ignorance or fanaticism, makes them a disaster to themselves and channels of contagion and disease to others. It is a peril to Christianity. It is a peril, be¬ cause it puts on the robes of Christian pro¬ fession and hides its real antagonism under the plea of a higher and more spiritual con¬ cept. It is a peril to Christianity, because it re¬ peats the name of Christ, wards off suspicion and then, slowly but systematically, seeks to deny him. It is a peril to Christianity, because it quotes the Bible as its authority, professes to be its best interpreter and then, in the dark, seeks, little by little, to wrench it loose from the place of faith and absolute confidence. It is a peril to the Christian, because it talks of God and the Father and, step by step, leads the Christian to see that God is not a person, and Fatherhood but a name. It is a peril to the Christian, because while it talks to him of Christ, it leads him softly and insensibly away from Christ, or quite be¬ yond him, where he is his own saviour, his own Christ, and his own very God. It is a peril to the Christian, because it leads MENTAL ASSASSINATION 37 him eventually to deny the Lord who bought him, and thus brings him dangerously near that threshold where swift destruction falls on all who finally deny him. It is a peril to the unsaved, because it stupe¬ fies him on the edge of a precipice, closes his eyes to mortal danger, cries peace when there is no peace, and allows him to plunge head¬ long into a hopeless and unredeemable eternity. Christian Science is a sign of the times. It is a sign of that time of which our Lord forewarned when he said false teachers would come in his name and deceive many, doing many wonderful works and deceiving, if it were possible, the very elect; that time of which an apostle warns when he said the church would give heed to teachers who should turn them away from the truth and turn them to fables; that time of which an apostle warned when he said it would be nec¬ essary to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints; that time when the professing church would listen to wander¬ ing spirits and doctrines of demons; that time when spiritual apprehension would be so low that evil and false doctrine would find easy entrance to its midst; when the hope of the church, the Coming of the Lord would be set aside, and the apostles who proclaimed it de¬ clared to be mistaken; in short, that time of 38 MENTAL ASSASSINATION which the Son of God specifically warned when he announced that the faith would dis¬ appear from the earth, and that its waning and absence would be the threshold and witness of his coming. Christian Science is a sign that the Coming of the Lord draweth nigh. It is a witness that the forces of heaven and the forces of hell are gathering for the battle of the great day of God Almighty; that Satan is getting himself together for his last des¬ perate act; that in this bold and yet subtle at¬ tempt to counterfeit Christianity through Christian Science, he is paving the way to set up the man of sin, the son of perdition, he who is the final incarnation of himself; that all things are moving forward to that moment when the Son of God will secretly and sud¬ denly withdraw his church of regenerated be¬ lievers from the world to himself and then, when the evil is fully headed up, will descend with the church in outbreaking indignation and wrath upon Satan, his confederates, and all who have been seduced and entangled by him. Christian Science is a witness of all these things and is, therefore, a warning to every spiritual mind, a cry to every hearing ear. As one set for the defence of the Gospel and called upon to declare the whole counsel of God, I lift my voice and word against it. MENTAL ASSASSINATION 39 I warn that it is a pestilence, a fever, a miasma, a poison. It is Satan’s masterpiece, Satan’s disguise, and the sure destruction of every unwary soul who yields to it. In describing it and warning against it, every symbol of evil may be used, every meta¬ phor of iniquity mixed, all the collocation of terms known to human language exhausted, and then, when this has been done, not enough will have been said, nor emphasis sufficiently given, to paint it, picture it, denounce, and warn against it. I warn you to shun it. I exhort you to flee from it. Refuse to admit it into your house. If it comes in the name of friendship, do not receive it. Refuse absolutely to discuss it or hold controversy with it, any more than you would clasp hands with a leper or lie in his foul and fetid embrace. I call upon you to turn from this evil thing which smiles and speaks under its breath and, while it whispers, steals away that name which is above every name, the name which guaran¬ tees forgiveness of sins, opens the close shut grave, brings immortality to light, illumines the way to heaven and the throne of God, gives peace here and glory there; the name over which angels sing, before which angels con¬ fess, and at whose mention the whole universe must, finally, bend the knee—the name which is above every name, whether named in 40 MENTAL ASSASSINATION heaven, or in earth, or under the earth—the name of Jesus. Turn, I pray you, from that pestilential and shameful thing which would blot out the name, the person, the work, the present priestly office, and the coming glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Turn before the Lord himself descends in judgment on those who have not exalted his name above every name, and who have not owned him as Lord and God. Turn from this thing which calls itself Christian Science, is neither scientific nor Christian and, beneath its indecent defiance.of science and its treacherous betrayal of Christ, conceals the face of Antichrist and the form of Satan. By JOSEPH A. SEISS, D.D. Lectures on the Apocalypse The Matchless Commentary ON THE Book of Revelation Tenth Edition, 5,000 Set*. Total of all Edition*, 20,000 Set* (60,000 Volume*) A remarkable work with a phenomenal sale and a world-wide influence. The literary style of these Lec¬ tures is of the highest order, and this with the illuminating and instructive nature of their exposition gives them a fascinating and absorbing interest. A Few of the Many Testimonials from Ministers of Nearly all Denominations REV. C. I. SCOFIELD, D. D.: “I have read with much care more than fifty books on The Revelation. Of these, but two have commended themselves to my judgment as Biblical, sound, and spiritual. Of these two, the better is Seiss." REV. R. A. TORREY: “I have got a good ways into the first volume, and enjoy it.” REV. D. M. STEARNS: "It always gives me pleasure to com¬ mend Dr. Seiss’ ‘Lectures on the Apocalypse.' 1 think 1 have never read anything more profitable or helpful on that most wonderful and blessed portion of Scripture." REV. F. W. FARR: “The lectures of Dr. Seiss have a homiletic value and a literary charm, to say nothing of their doctrinal teaching, that ought to give them a prominent place in every student’s library.” REV. JOSEPH A. OWEN: "It is the most satisfying treatment of that Book as a whole that I have ever read." Three Volumes, 12mo., 1,417 Pages, with Index and Chart of the Course of Time FORMER PRICE, $5.00 NOW $2.50 PER SET EXPRESS PAID By I. M. HALDEMAN, D.D. How to Study the Bible The first chapter of this book is a comprehensive and luminous treatise on Bible Study of great value. This is fol¬ lowed by forty-five strong expository unfoldings of the more prominent themes of the Bible. With colored dispensational chart and the author’s portrait, handsomely bound in red cloth, gilt edges. Third edition. 12 mo., 580 pages, post¬ paid . . . . . . • • $ 1.50 The Coming of Christ: Pre-Millennial and Imminent The literature on this fascinating theme is greatly enriched by this volume—an entirely new and original presentation. A prominent Bible teacher writes: * It thrills me." Fifth edition, ninth thousand. Handsomely bound in red cloth, 12 mo., 325 pages, postpaid . . . . . 31 .OO Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture A powerful analysis of one of the greatest religious perils of the day. Third edition. Cloth, 441 pages, postpaid. $ 1.50 Theosophy or Christianity: Which? A comparison, with an introduction by Rev. F. DeWitt Talmage, D. D. An X-Ray treatment clearly showing the slimy origin of Theosophy, its foul character and its dismal out¬ look, in striking contrast to the beauty and glorious triumph of the Christian’s faith. Second edition. . . 20c Can Morality Save Us? A powerful, logical argument of unique interest. Second edition. IOC Jericho Theology A brilliant and powerful arraignment of the "New Theology* men. .1 Oc Thinking Above What is Written or ihe exaltation of human wisdom above the word of God lOc The New Religion or Athenian Culture and Christianity , . 1 Oc The DeviPs Righteousness or Cain come to town again .... IOC CHARLES C, COOK - 150 Nassau Street, New York