Christian Science
Ow New Religion. By the Rt.Ron. H. A. L. Fisher. (Benn. 68.)
A nYsTERIcAL invalids_ was cured in her fifties by a popular healer, Phineas P. Quimby. All her life she had been ailing. Even as a child " she would fall headlong to the floor, writhing and screaming in apparent agony. At other times she became rigid like a ,cataleptic and continued for some time in a state of suspended animation." When the village physician was called in he diagnosed " hysteria mingled with bad temper " ; but no treatment proved successful in dealing with her until she consulted Mr. Quimby. She had made many experiments. She had lived on bread and fruit and been rubbed down every night with alcohol. She had undergone a water cure. She had lived suspended in a cradle, rocked by the hands of her family and of hired helps from the village (suspended animation indeed !). Nothing had been of any avail.
This was the woman who was to become famous to the world as Mrs. Eddy ; at the time of her cure Mrs. Patterson ; previously Mrs. Glover ; . nee Mary Baker. There is no doubt that she was a remarkable personality. Even before she had pulled together the threads of her life she had been exceptional ; she had gone into trances, heard voices and seen visions. Afterwards she became one of the outstanding influences of American culture, and her doctrine's have spread through most of the modern world. It was truly no small achievement for a woman so thoroughly to invert her own style of living ; from having been a hypochondriac, to become the prophetess and example of health ; from having passed her time in dreams, to enter so concretely and efficiently into public life ; to make a gospel for herself and to be the embodiment of her own gospel. Christian Science was Mrs. Eddy's act of integration. It was a real solution for her own difficulties ; and, because it had such signal validity for Mrs. Eddy, Christian Science demands and deserves the sincerest respect. In some way or other it cannot but be true ; though we have no need to suppose it the whole truth.
In his clear and precise study of Christian Science Mr. H. A. L. Fisher has reviewed the spread of this " new religion " more with sadness than with alarm. In the United States of America, he tells us, many people regard it as likely to be the only serious competitor to the Roman Catholic religion ; and fears have been expressed lest the political direction of the republic might ultimately fall into the hands of " the members of this well-meaning but fantastic sect." The Christian Science corporation commands vast material resources. " It is as little likely to founder as the Standard Oil Trust." There are no statistics from which we can calculate the membership ; but in 1912 the supply of Christian Science patients in the United States was given as some six million, and we learn that a new church is opened every four days.
It is the flamboyance, the lack of true spiritual cultivation, in Christian Science, which makes Mr. Fisher regret its
diffusion. " Whatever useful fruits may be produced,"
he remarks, " by a religion in which health has ousted charity as the main concern, the selfless nature will not be among them," In this sentence he touches not only the poverty of Christian Science as a religion, but also its disadvantage: as a technique of healing.. Where health is over-valued, it becomes more difficult to preserve health. Where health is made an act of faith, moments of doubt are moments of disease :-
" Instead of regarding health as natural, the Christian Scientist holds it to be a state of the spirit, only to be won and sustained by mental exercise: So a rehgton which sets out to banish fear and illness, in many cases ends by enthroning a valetudinarian anxiety in the citadel of the mind, an anxiety deepened by the belief that the taint of moral and spiritual weakness attaches to every physical pain or discomfort."
So Mrs. Eddy herself, even after her revelation, did not remain free from distress of the body ; but her battle with ill health became a conflict with the powers of evil, a warfare against the hostile mesmerisms of her personal enemies.
In her last years she discovered " a new form of sin and malpractice." " Evil is trying to produce sudden death in sleep," she announced ; and a body-guard of loyal healers was recruited to watch through the nights in relays. " Make a law that there shall be no snow this season," she instructed her body-guard.
In Our New Religion Mr. Fisher has examined Christian
Science under three headings, The Prophetess, The Creed, and The Church. He writes with wit and clarity, and his study is most excellent reading. At times he may be charged with being unfair to Christian Science and to its founder ; not so much in his selection of facts as in the neat way in which he contrives to make the facts seem a little ridiculous. The question, however, is one of proportion ; for Mr. Fisher also accords to Christian Science its measure of validity and truth.
The remembrance we keep at the end of this book is not the remembrance of theoretical arguments ; it is the impress of a notable personality. Christian Science is Mrs. Eddy herself. While she lived she was the despot and inspiration of Christian Science. When she died she chose her own
successors and made sure that nothing new should be added to her doctrine. She left behind her an over-grown and incoherent book, Science and Health, which she had successfully
imposed upon the movement as a scripture equal in authority to the Bible itself. She had the audacity to proclaim that she, Mrs. Eddy, was the woman in the Apocalypse, " the great wonder in heaven, the woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars." But, though her claims were fantastic, she had made Herself into a shrewd and practical woman of affairs; simple in her tastes, devout and methodical ; and she succeeded, till her ninetieth year, in keeping at bay what she understood to be the Powers of Evil.
Previous page
