CHRISTIAN SCIENCE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sna,—As you have admitted into the Spectator an article on Christian Science, the experiences of a clergyman of the Church of England in connexion with it may possibly be of interest to your readers.
There are some Christian Scientists in my neighbourhood, and with no view of proselytizing, I determined to make myself acquainted with their beliefs. Accordingly I read Mrs. Eddy's book and some of their propaganda pamphlets. Science and Health seemed to me to be confused, incoherent and self-contradictory. To one who believes that the cardinal doctrines of Christianity follow in natural and orderly sequence upon a few fundamental assumptions, the theology of Christian Science is quite impossible. The denials of the reality of matter and of the deity of Christ are as old as the Gnostics and the Arians. They have fallen out of the main stream of Christian thought, and have been left behind. The Christian creeds have been assailed from the first with every kind of negative criticism. That they still tstand unchanged is in itself no inconsiderable witnees to
their truth. The single addition of the " fitioque o clause to the Nicene Creed was a change in the positive not the negative :direction.
But the case is different, if you turn from theory to practice. Some years ago I had in my pariah a woman suffering from cancer. No one knew of it but her family and the doctors, who were all agreed in their diagnosis of the case, and said that the disease was too far advanced for operation. I approached her through her relations, and persuaded her to try Christian Science. I said that if a man professed to be able to cure disease, it was not necessary to inquire into lib religious beliefs. The effect of treatment was instantaneous and amazing. The disease had been increasing rapidly and was giving her much pain. The pain ceased almost at once and the growth gradually shrank until it became, I believe, practically negligible. Her life was prolonged for ten years, in which she felt little or no inconvenience and could do her usual work. When she died after a short illness, the doctors said that her death was probably due to an internal recurrence of the complaint, but I do not think they verified their opinion.
It may be that her temperament and circumstances were favourable to the cure, for she was a woman of a singularly refined and gentle nature. Moreover her brother was twice successfully operated upon for external cancer, and died of something else. I should add that I made the same experiment later with a man suffering from the same disease, and treat- ment was unavailing. He however had little religious faith, though in his last illness he tried to acquire it.
The moral I draw is that under every heresy there is a substratum of truth, which gives it life. The theology and metaphysics of Christian Science will not bear serious examination. Its teaching about health and happiness, and the connexion between them, is largely though not entirely, on the lines of the teaching of Christ.—! am, Sir, &c., Champiry. NORTON G. LAWSON,
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