CHRISTIAN scimei AN APOSTASY FROM SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BY REV. CYRIL BUOTICH, O. F. M. IN ST. BONIFACE CHURCH SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA Digitized by the Internet Arciiive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/christianscienceOObuotrich AN APOSTASY FROM SCIENCE AND CHRISTIANITY A COURSE OF LECTURES DELIVERED BY REV. CYRIL BUOTICH, O. F. M. IN ST. BONIFACE CHURCH SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA COPYRIGHT. 1916 BY CYRIL BUOTICH. O. F. M FOREWORD The lectures herewith presented were deliv- ered during the services of the Pious Union of St. Anthony. They appear in their present form in response to the request of Superiors and the inquiries of many who were in attend- ance. If their style prove unpalatable to some lit- erary critic, I can only plead the excuse that it is mine, and that I. could devote to the revi- sion of notes only the uncertain moments snatched from the more pressing duties of the priestly ministry. If severity be given expression to, I offer no apology. These lectures were prepared to be spoken not coldly, but with the intense desire of striking — ^not at the individual Christian Scientist, who may be an honest victim of a gigantic swindle — but at the movement of Christian Science, which is not a harmless fad, but a distinct form of religion, appropriating the name of Christian, yet insidiously inimical to Jesus Christ, professing to relieve the suf- ferings of humanity, yet, if universally ac- 357613 IV cepted, bound to increase those sufferings a hundredfold. If Mrs. Eddy has been made an object of attack, it is because, as F. W. Pea- body observes, Mrs. Eddy is Christian Science, and Christian Science is Mrs. Eddy. Among the books and lesser publications I read and used in preparing these lectures I desire to mention "Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture, ^^ by Dr. I. M. Halde- man; "The Eeligio-Medical Masquerade," by F. W. Peabody, LL. B.; "Christian Science against Itself," by M. W. Gifford, Ph. D.; "What Is Christian Science?" by P. C. Wol- cott, B. D.; "Hypnotism," by Dr. A. Moll; "Psychotherapy," by J. J. Walsh, M. D., LL. D.; "Pastoral Medicine," by A. E. San- ford, M. D. Unless otherwise stated, the 1913 edition of "Science and Health" is quoted. Fr. Cyril, 0. F. M. Imprimi potest Fr. Hugolinus Storff, 0. F. M., Min. Provlis. Imprimatur ^Eduardus J. Hanna, ArcMepiscopus Sancti Francisci. INTRODUCTORY LECTURE "But though zve, or an' angel from heaven, preach a gospel besides that ivhich we have preached to you, let him be anathema." Gal. 1:8. It was on the blessed day, when Jesus Christ, standing on the mountain in Galilee, addressed to His assembled apostles the momentous words, ''All power is given to Me in heaven and on earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations, '^ that the Catholic Church received her commission to be the Oracle of truth and the Teacher of mankind, and to pass down the ages bearing in one hand for the children of men the sacred scroll of the Gospels and in the other the blessed fruits of the redeeming death of the Divine Savior on the cross. Glorious Career of the Divinely Instituted Church. How faithfully she has heeded that com- mand, and what magnificent triumphs she has achieved in the interests of Christ as well as for the welfare of men, her record today after a career of nineteen centuries bears glorious and undying testimony. In every cycle and century she has proclaimed the teachings of Christ as she heard them from His own sacred lips; to every race and generation she has carried the tidings of redemption; in every clime and country she has erected altars of the unbloody sacrifice, whence flow the graces of the crucified Savior into the souls of those who adore Him as their God and Redeemer. What marvel, then, that millions have learnt lovingly to gaze upon her as their Mother, and rever- ently to honor her as the Spouse of Jesus Christ, bearing the fourfold mark of unity, sanctity, catholicity and apostolicity. Unrelenting Antagonism. Yet I bid you to gaze back over her history and judge what violent opposition and agony of keen rivalry have been her portion, from the very day she first set forth to accomplish her mission to this very hour and moment. The Christ-hating emperors of Rome un- sheathed the sword of persecution ; the jealousy of pagan religions and pagan philosophy heaped upon her ignominy and slander; and the blood of thousands, of millions, of her mangled children soaked the hot sands of the arenas of antiquity. The blood of martyrs, however, became the seed of new Christians, and the arms of the tiger-hearted emperors of Rome sank exhausted and paralyzed to their sides. The cross was raised aloft over the ruins of Paganism, and shone forth in trium- phant glory. False Prophets and False Christs, Old and New. But, alas, the respite of peace and calm was short-lived. There arose other enemies, not violent but the more dangerous, because the more insidious. There appeared in the field new religions, — religions, that usurped the name of Jesus, falsely claimed divine commis- sion and illumination, and, to bear out their contention, hesitated not to appeal to wonder- ful cure and prodigy. They lived their day; but bearing within themselves the germs of error and falsehood, they eventually sank into the dust of the grave, and, we would hope, into unceasing oblivion. But, alas, no! The spirit of Neo-platonism and Gnosticism has come to life again. Today also have appeared intruders and counterfeits, philosophers and hierophants, with honeyed words upon their tongues and poison beneath their tongues, presenting to the world strange ^4sms" and new religions, garbed, indeed, in the robes of Christian truth and Christian charity, yet replete within with deceit and cruelty. Such ' a masquerading impostor we charge the form of worship and healing system founded by Mrs. Mary Baker Glover Eddy to be, which she called Christian Science and described as ''based on teachings of Scripture which it interprets, giving the Christ principle in divine metaphysics which heals the sick and the sinner/' The Appearance of Christian Science. Its Progress. Having discovered Christian Science as the result of scriptural research (as I understand her), Mrs. Eddy first began her active propa- ganda in 1867. In the year 1875 appeared her bible and authoritative textbook, "Science and Health." Within the space of twenty years, Mrs. Eddy witnessed her religion pass in a triumphant march from the Atlantic Coast to our own Western shores, spreading the seeds of her teachings broadcast over the land and conquering the hearts of thousands of the American people. In the wake of its victories have arisen Christian Scientist churches in every city of size and importance, and in Bos- ton, Massachusetts, towers aloft today the Scientists' "Temple," representing an expen- diture of millions of dollars. Quality of Membership. The magnificence of the majority of these structures and their grandeur of architecture, as well as the luxurious limousines parked in their vicinity, lead us to believe that those who attend Christian Science services, are not men and women of very humble means, much less down-and-outs of the slum districts who, for soup and lodging, affiliate each succeeding night with a different Church, but representa- tives of the so-called circles of society and aristocracy of wealth. True, an abundance of wealth among Chris- tian Scientists does not necessarily connote an abundance of gray brain-matter and intelli- gence. We doubt not at all, that the larger number of the adherents of Christian Science is formed of that class of people, for whom, it may be feared, ''a little learning is a danger- ous thing,'' people who are sufficiently educated to rant and rave over mystical and oracular paradoxes, yet not learned enough to detect sophistry and shallowness of argument. . Still the further fact remains true, amazing as it is, that into the fold of Christian Science have wandered also persons of acknowledged intel- lectual power and culture, men who are the avowed exponents of the very sciences which Christian Science tends to supplant and de- stroy, men of eminence in the legal and educa- tional professions; and it is this spectacle of intelligence and sincere human endeavor sacri- ficed before the idol, reared by a comparatively uncultured and absolutely unsympathetic woman, that fills us with disgust and renders us sick at heart. Explanation of Mark Twain. Witnessing this phenomenon, Mark Twain in a personal letter written to F. W. Peabody of the Boston Bar offers the following expla- nation: ''At bottom I suppose I take private delight in seeing the human race make an ass of itself again — which it has always done when- ever it had a chance, — so far as I know men have never shown any noticeable degree of san- ity in their affairs, and to me it appears rather large flattery to intimate that they are capable of it. See them get down and worship that old creature [meaning Mrs. Eddy]. A century hence they'll be at it. Sanity — in the human race! This is really fulsome." These are the words of Mark Twain, and not ours. We have conceived and retain too high a regard of the dignity of human nature. Shall we ridicule and jest? No, the hour is too ear- nest and the sacrifice too appalling. Shall our words be those of contempt and sneer and scoff? No, we feel only pity; and even in the supposed truth of Mark Twain's assertion, we could not bring ourselves to a chuckling with delight over the sight of the human race mak- ing an ass of itself. Element of Truth in All Erroneous Systems. But, as a matter of fact, we do not think asininity, as alleged by Mark Twain, to be the secret of the wide success of Christian Science in gaining converts. No, we prefer to propose another explanation — an explanation based upon the theory that there is no absolute and unmitigated error, but that in every heresy, grotesque and egregious though it be, there is an element of truth, and that it is this element precisely, presented in novel form and fashion, which constitutes an attractive feature. According to this theory, then. Christian Science has struck upon and drawn from the past some principle, some truth, that lay long- obscured and much neglected, and it is by means of this truth that it today wields an immense influence. True Principle in Christian Science. There can be no doubt that we have been quite thoroughly saturated with medicine. The gold-lettered '^M. D.'^ signs staring down at us from- a hundred windows in every street, the drug stores with their long rows of brightly colored patent medicines, labeled to cure every sickness, ill, infirmity, bruise, stiffness, lacera- tion, are quite sufficient evidence that we have become a medicine-soaked and an over-drugged generation. Moreover, many have not only 8 been steeped in medicine, but also in the errors of materialism. The scalpel of the surgeon cannot reach the soul; therefore, the existence of the soul has been denied. Mrs. Baker Eddy appeared, — and undoubtedly for many as an angel of light. When they lay in the throes of the hideous nightmare of materialism, she awoke them to the fact and truth of the exist- ence and superiority of spirit. When they pos- sessed, at best, a ghastly, despiritualized form of Christianity, she brought them a creed which in some measure produced in their souls a sense of spirituality. Nay, she has done more. She has reduced the truth of the superiority of mind over mat- ter to practice. She has demonstrated that under certain conditions the soul can exercise control over the body for the obtaining of health, having conquered hypochondria in a vast number of cases, bettered the condition of many whose ailment depended upon the nervous system directly, nay, it is possible, won triumphs in the realm of disease whose connection with the nervous system, though not fully apparent, was none the less real, although indirect. Finding hope, when hopeless, and cure, when abandoned, ''no wonder, '' to use her own words, ''the American spirit, unquiet in a drug-soaked body, arose with joy at the sug- gestion of a new evangel.'' Whif Do We Quarrel with Christian Science? Right in Some Affirmations — Wrong in Thousand Negations. In view of these facts, why should we quar- rel with Christian Science? Why? Because we have considered only the ounce of truth contained in Mrs. Eddy's system, and not as yet touched upon the large admixture of error and falsehood. For though Christian Science is, indeed, correct in some isolated affirmations, it is wrong, damnably wrong, in a thousand negations. It has truthfully reasserted against Materialism the superiority of mind over mat- ter, but at the same time it has swung like a pendulum to the opposite extreme and lapsed into a stultifying form of Idealism ; it may pro- fess belief in the existence of God, yet it con- ceals within itself the vagaries of Pantheism; it may impart a taste of the spiritual, yet it crams down bulging mouthfuls of blasphemy; it may have effected, by virtue of the principle of control of mind over body, cures in a few isolated cases, yet there are scores of others, where innocent children and duped adults have 10 been victimized and sacrificed to fanaticism and ignorance. Will Perish. Whilst It Endures Will Prove a Menace. Shall we, therefore, let Christian Science alone? Shall my voice fail to ring in denunci- ation and invective against it? No! Convinced though I am, that eventually it will die the same inglorious death and share the same fate as its foundress, now mouldering in the ceme- tery of Mt. Auburn, yet I realize that, whilst it continues to wear the masque of bluff and hypocrisy, it will entice vast numbers into its clutches and crush the Christian life and spirit out of them upon its bosom. Deliberately, therefore, have I made those charges against Christian Science, and it shall be my endeavor during the course of these lectures to sustain and prove them, — not ex- actly with the purpose of discharging a duty of truth-telling towards Christian Scientists (for genuine investigation has been boycotted and forbidden to them, and demonstration falls dead upon deaf ears), but from a sense of duty towards those who are sincerely perplexed and are wandering towards error, and, most of all, to sound the tocsin of warning to Catholics, lest some of them forsake the bosom of their Mother Church and be decoyed by a religion, 11 that wears but the masque of Christianity, a religion, that promises them fruit from the tree of knowledge and life, yet in reality otf ers them Dead Sea apples, beautiful from without, but filled with ashes and corruption, poison and death. MATTER NOT A REALITY "In the beginning God created heaven, and earth." Gen. 1:1. EiGHTLY and aptly has gratitude ever been re- garded as the noblest adornment of the human soul, whereas mgratitude has at all times been abhorred as the mark of a mind, ignoble and mean. It was our endeavor in the course of the last lecture to escape the ignominy of the latter and to merit the glory of the former. Frankly we conceded that Christian Science has lent its efforts towards thwarting the prog- ress of Materialism, one of the most groveling forms of error and yet one of the favorite philosophic systems of the closing years of the past century. We know that the Catholic Church, divinely constituted the Teacher of truth and endowed with never-dying power, is as vigorous today and as confident of obtaining ultimate victory over every foe, as she was in centuries gone by. Yet why should we not welcome and hail with delight the advent and co-operation of every ally, promising to strive against falsehood and uphold truth in its orig- 13 inal purity! Hence we could not but give expression to our sentiments of rejoicing and gratefulness, faint though they were, that Mrs. Baker Eddy, by virtue of her practical demon- strations, recalled many from perhaps the darkest cavern of error to the glorious con- sciousness, that there lives a spark of immortal fire, that all within us and about us is not mat- ter, but that in our bodies of flesh and blood resides a spiritual soul, holding and wielding influence for good. We Recoil from Mrs. Eddy. But had Mrs. Eddy only ceased there! Had she not, unsteadied and unguided by the hand of the Spouse of Christ, rushed to the other extreme! The Materialist shocked us, by af- firming that all is matter. Mrs. Eddy would insult our intelligence, by telling us that all is mind. And now, — we recoil from her. She proposes a philosophy, which would delude us into the belief, that we and all our ancestors to the cradle of the race, have been in throes of a nightmare, when we asserted the existence of body and limb, nay, of sky and sun and universe, a philosophy which would convince us that our five senses, those God-given mediums of the human soul through which it obtains its 14 knowledge of the outside world, are so many lying mediums. Testimony of the Senses False. No Matter. Sweepingly she assails their testimony in the following words : ' ' The five physical senses are the avenues and instruments of human error, and they correspond with error. ' ' (^'Science and Health,'' pg. 293.) ^'Christian Science reveals man as the idea of God, and declares the corporeal senses to be mortal and erring delusions." (''Science and Health," pg. 477.) Having denied their evidence, she then apodictically establishes as the fundamen- tal tenet in the metaphysics of Christian Sci- ence the following proposition: ''Matter seems to be, but is not." ("Science and Health," pg. 123.) "Divine Science, rising above physical theories, excludes matter, resolves things into thoughts." ("Science and Health," pg. 123.) "Matter and death are mortal illusions." ("Science and Health," pg. 289.) Human Body a Concept of Mortal Mind. Bones Have Only the Substance of Thought. Hence, according to this woman clothed in the rays of wisdom, the very pews of oak, which you this moment occupy, are thoughts. You are sitting upon "spiritual ideas." You may reassure me, you feel the hardness of the 15 wood, and see the gloss and brilliancy of the varnish. But that avails you nothing. Mrs. Eddy has declared your senses are so many false witnesses and you are the victims of their illusions. Moreover, your bodies exist only in false belief. Your eyes, now fixed upon me, your ears now listening, your hands resting upon your knees, the very bones which serve as a frame for your build of flesh and veins and blood — all are unreal in the system of this woman, who writes (in ''Science and Health, '^ pg. 177): "Matter or body, is a false concept of mortal mind.'' (And pg. 423): "Bones have only the substance of thought which formed them. They are only phenomena (ap- pearance) of the mind of mortals." Question of Weight, One of Mind. Mrs. Eddy anticipates, when you are inclined to argue. She puts the question, "How can I believe there is no such thing as matter when I weigh over two hundred pounds and carry this weight about daily T' (Misc., pg. 46, quoted by I. M. Haldeman) and then answers: "By learning that matter is manifest mortal mind. You entertain an adipose belief of yourself as substance." (Misc., pg. 47, quoted by I. M. Haldeman.) Accordingly, weight is not a matter of scales but of imagination. Ac- credit yourself the weight of a battleship and 16 you will weigh tons, or, by a broad jump to the opposite extreme, with a fine taste for the delicate, fancy yourself as light as the feather whirled about by the breeze, and you average not the weight of a letter transmitted through the mails for a two-cent stamp. Pity 'tis, Mrs. Eddy herself made not practical use of this hint during the last years of her life, if we are to credit the descriptions of her personal ap- pearance ! Man or Woman — Your Choice!! Material Order of Generation Rendered Silent. Finally she makes an assertion regarding the anatomy of the human body and the mysteries of life, that I would loathe to express, were it not, that an adequate treatment of the subject demands it. With serious mien Mrs. Eddy assures us, "Gender is a quality of mind, not of matter." ("Science and Health," pg. 201, 74 ed., quoted by I. W. Haldeman.) There is, therefore, in her teaching no physiological dis- tinction of sex. The Almighty created them not male and female. Your being a man or a woman depends upon your subjective belief. Stunning as may be this piece of absurdity that issued from the pen of a woman, whom thousands revere as the Light and Truth, gasp not for breath till you hear the further conclu- sion that she draws, namely, "Generation rests 17 on no sexual basis" ("Science and Health," pg. 274, 74 ed., quoted by I. W. Haldeman)^ but "The so-called substance of bone is formed first by the parent's mind, through self^ division. Soon the child becomes a separate, individualized mortal mind, which takes pos- session of itself and its own thoughts of bones." ("Science and Health," pg. 424.) Mrs. Eddy, Married Three Times, Believes Not in Marriage. This is appalling. Quite readily do we now understand how this same woman could write: "To abolish marriage at this period and main- tain morality and generation, would put in- genuity to ludicrous shifts; yet this is possible in science (Christian Science), although it is today problematic." (Misc., pg. 286, quoted by C. E. Locke.) We are not unprepared to accord belief to the statement that, at the dedi- cation of "Mother Church" in Boston, Mrs. Eddy characterized marriage as "synonymous with legalized lust." Christian Scientists strongly deny this, yet Mr. Peabody of the Boston Bar assures us that it can be found in the Christian Science Sentinel for June 16, 1906, and in the Christian Science Journal for July, 1906. The Universe, a Construction of Mind. But to return from our digression — you will pass out and wander into the night. The vault 18 and dome of the firmament above is studded with a thousand burnished lights. In yonder quarter of the heavens the moon rolls in cloudy grandeur. Her rays fall softly upon the bosom of the bay, and her silvery glow bathes the city in glory. The words of the Psalmist rise spontaneously from your heart, ''The heavens show forth the glory of God." But no ! Chris- tian Science will ruthlessly awaken you from your revery. Vain man, cease your wonder- ing! Marvel not over mortal error! For all you behold is not the universe, as you and your forefathers conceived it — matter hanging in space — but all a construction of mind based upon the fallacy of false-belief. We have learned to pity Hamlet in the paroxysms of his madness. But he was not mad. He raved not. He spoke the sober and absolute truth, when he said, "This goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory, — this majes- tical roof fretted with golden fire, why it ap- pears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." Poor Ham- let ! We thought him raving and mad. Lo, he was but an advanced Christian Scientist. You may think that I am with deliberate intent poking fun at the system of Christian Science and rendering it ludicrous and ridicu- lous. But I protest, I am not. If there be any nonsense, to which expression has been given, 19 it lies solely in what Mrs. Eddy has asserted and in the inference obviously to be drawn from it. Theory and Practice of Christian Scientists. We know full well that Christian Scientists do not fashion their lives and actions after the teachings of their system. Mrs. Eddy may deny the existence of matter, but we know that she as well as her followers take special care to avoid a headlong collision with a locomotive, turn in the fire alarm when their houses are wrapped in flame and fire, make careful distinc- tion between dollars and cents. They may deny the existence of body, yet we understand that they, too, sit at the table three times a day, and partake not of the products of imagi- nation, but of the products of the pastures, fields and meadows. Furthermore, Mrs. Eddy may assert that a diversity of sex exists only in the mind and its belief, yet we notice that followers of Christian Science exercise particu- lar care to marry an ^'idea,'' opposite in gen- der from themselves, and in the case of Mrs. Eddy not once but twice and thrice a male ^4dea." Arguments Afford No Justification to Catalogue of Negations. Yet what Christian Scientists do, engages not at present our attention. Since it is evi- 20 dent that the foundress of Christian Science has negated the existence of matter and has formally rejected the testimony of the senses, what interests us now is to ask what proofs does Mrs. Eddy offer in justification of her sweeping negations. Formally she offers al- most none, and substantially none at all. She may rightly contend that God is an omnipres- ent spirit, yet wrong and unwarranted is her further statement that hence His existence ex- cludes the existence of matter. God is an infinite Spirit, and, as such, must not be con- strued as a space-filling bulk. Moreover, the senses may have erred in some instances, yet why should their testimony be accounted false in every instance! And if, from uncritical and narrow observation, men, crediting their senses, did entertain in the past the erroneous belief that the earth is flat and stationary, still were not those very same senses employed later on in gaining the necessary evidence that cor- rected the erroneous inference regarding the stellar system! Finally, vain is the appeal of Mrs. Eddy based upon the fact that the mind can conjure imaginary objects. True, I can imagine a fleet of ships riding in proud array at anchor. Yet affords this an argument that ships and bay exist not? Does not the very fact that I can conceive in my imagination ships and bay, argue that at some time I have 21 perceived the realities of both! The shadow presupposes the existence of the reality. And is it not just because there are realities which obtrude themselves on every normal mind pre- cisely as realities, that men can distinguish per- ceptions of the senses from mere ghostly products of a heated and feverish mind? Some Christian Scientists assert that their system negates the existence of no object, but only affirms it to be mental. This contention, how- ever, is equally absurd. The untutored savage of the forest primeval will tell you, that there is a difference between the deer, which he fol- lows in his dream, and the deer, which he de- tects grazing in the forest depths. The latter exists, and is real. The former is merely an idea of a deer. And an idea of a deer is not a deer either in the mind or in the forest. Two classes of individuals appear to be un- able to perceive the distinction between objects oF reality and those of fancy. One we meet in the D. T. wards of our hospitals, and the other, if we are to believe their words, in the circle of Christian Scientists. Ch7^istian Science Destructive of the Physical Sciences. Such then is the fundamental and first plank in the platform of Christian Science — perfo- rated with error and falsehood. Men of sci- 22 ence, of different religious persuasion than our own, with particular delight and relish point the finger of scorn at our Mother Church, and designate the centuries of her sway as ^'dark ages/' Why do they not now turn the outpourings of their indignation upon the mod- ern Prophetess of New England'? This time their wrath would prove righteous. Mrs. Eddy teaches, ^'matter is nothing, and nothing is matter." It is her '^ plank." Now, rest upon this plank the efforts and achievements of men of science of every age — and then hearken to the crash! For if matter exists not, then all the properties of matter, weight, porosity, ten- acity, etc., are vaporous dreams; attraction, electricity, sound, heat, etc., are childish fan- cies. What remains, therefore, of the natural sciences and the teachings of physics'? What further purpose serves chemistry in the cur- riculum of our colleges, since all the tedious work of experiment deals with the discovery of ''inverted thought"? We thought chemical properties exist whether discovered or not by mind, yet, according to Eddyism, they ema- nate from mortal mind. Ye astronomers, in- vert — destroy your telescopes ! Scan not the skies by night! Those twinkling stars and wheeling orbs possess no substantiality. They are mere fireflies flitting across the empty spaces of mind. Ye plain and common people, 23 arise in indignation and raze to the ground the colleges of medicine and surgery! For within those walls are being carefully trained the men, who will swindle you into the belief that bone is mostly lime, and that flesh and blood are chemical compounds, whereas (as teaches Mrs. Eddy) lung and liver, stomach and heart are but forms of mortal error and false belief. Nay (pardon the digression), ye housewives, hang up your brooms and dusters! There is no dust on your parlor table, — the cobwebs hang not in the corners of your rooms, but in the corners of your mind ! You may have been ignorant of this fact in the past, and exerted useless effort, but then you knew not ^'Sci- ence. ' ' Christian Science Contradicts the Bible Narrative of Creation. Veritably Carrie Nation displayed not a more destructive temper in wrecking saloons, than does Mrs. Eddy in assailing the edifice of science. Her attacks on the Bible and its author, however, recall the ignominious mem- ory of Eobert Ingersoll. Moses writing under divine inspiration opens the Book of Genesis with the solemn words, ''In the beginning God created heaven, and earth.'' Minutely and graphically he describes the formation of the universe, the separation of the dry land from 24 the waters, the enriching of the former with flower and fruit, the filling of the latter with fishes that wander "through the paths of the sea." In the last place he records the creation of Adam and Eve, so that if is evident that matter existed and was fashioned into design and order long before deluded individuals with mortal minds even existed. So plain are the inspired writer's words, so manifest is his intention to record a creation of matter, so clearly does his record convey a condemnation of the theories of Christian Science, that Mrs. Eddy could not escape, but growing desperate, had no other refuge than to call Moses an ignoramus. For she writes, ''Spiritually fol- lowed, the Book of Genesis is the history of the untrue image of God, named a sinful mor- tal." (''Science and Health," pg. 502.) "The translators of this record (the Genesis record of creation) entertained a false sense of be- ing." Why? Because they contradicted Mrs. Eddy — "they believed in the existence of mat- ter." ("Science and Health," pg. 545.) In- spired or uninspired, by God or angel or devil, anyone presuming to contradict Mrs. Eddy is unqualifiedly ignorant. Mrs. Eddy Blasphemes. In her insolence she proceeds farther. You recollect the scene in Paradise. The first par- 25 ents of the human race had listened to the overtures of the Ambassador of Evil. They virtually had declared, ^'We shall not serve. '^ Upon them the angered Sovereign and Creator passed the appalling sentence, '^Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return.'^ The evi- dent meaning of the text is: Thy body, which is formed originally of the slime of the earth (dust), shall again, through the natural forces of dissolution, pass into dust. But Mrs. Eddy would correct even the Almighty God. She would cause Him to say, '^Dust (nothingness) thou art, and unto dust (nothingness) thou shalt return. '^ (^'Science and Health," pg. 545.) What meant then the infinitely wise God? Has He imposed sentence upon noth- ing, and decreed that nothing should be reduced to nothing! Either Mrs. Eddy in her negation of the existence of matter and body is wrong, damnably wrong, or the All-wise God, of whom the Apostle, St. Paul, speaks in rapture, '^0, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!'* has spoken in the sense- less babble of a child. Mrs. Baker Eddy professedly has made a '' discovery, ' ' and proffered it to the world under the names of '^Science" and ^'Christian- ity''; but witnessing her in unhesitating and unqualified terms reject the evidence of the senses testifying to the existence of the uni- 26 verse, witnessing her in consequence sweep from under all the natural sciences their very foundations, witnessing her, in mad endeavor to maintain her proposition, assail the Word of God, I beg of you to pass judgment if Chris- tian Science be not in truth an apostacy from Science and Christianity. MAN IS NEVER SICK "And He healed many that were troubled with diverse dis- eases." Mark 1 :34. In the solenm and silent hour of midnight wander into the hospital and through the wards, where on couches, white and well- ordered, lie the city's sick and wounded. From our innermost heart we thank heaven for the beautiful charity, exhibited by the white-clad figure, silently moving from one sufferer to another, soothing fever and thirst in turn. We depart with the heart's most tender cords deeply stirred, and with the firm resolve, that, if millions were our portion, we would employ them in erecting for those sufferers the most comfortable shelter and the best equip- ment that art and science can devise and erect — thus in some slight measure to lift the heavy hand of pain and agony, weighing upon the human race on account of its first transgres- sion. Disease Unreal. From the far off days, when Christ healed the sick in the hamlets of Galilee, to the pres- 28 ent hour, such have ever been the sentiments of those who glory in His blessed name and call themselves Christian. However, there is one bold exception, namely, the Christian Sci- entist. He has sat at the feet of Mrs. Eddy. In his heart now no sentiments of commisera- tion and charity dwell. Not only is it his con- tention that hospital of brick and steel would prove a phantasmal structure of deluded mind, but having been taught that human body also exists not, from this premise he draws the farther conclusion, cruel and merciless in its logic, that all the sad and sorrowful drama of the world's disease and sickness is but one huge mistake of mortal mind. There is no heart to suffer valvular leakage; there are no eyes to be blind, no ears to be deaf, no lungs to be corroded with tuberculosis. Hence Mrs. Eddy writes, ^'A self-evident proposition in the sci- ence of mind-healing, is that disease is unreal." C^No and Yes," pg. 4.) ^'Some time it will be learned that mortal mind constructs the mortal body with this mind's own mortal materials. In Science, no breakage nor dislocation can really occur." (''Science and Health," pg. 402.) ''All that we term sin, sickness, and death is a mortal belief." ("Science and Health," pg. 278.) 29 The Message of Christian Science to Grieving Parents. Such is the message (consolatory or distract- ing, I know not) that Mrs. Eddy would bring the youthful mother, as she beholds her first born wither and waste upon her bosom like the bruised flower of spring; such is the philosophy that Christian Science would offer the silent and sorrowing father, as he bends over the bed and contemplates the wasting form of him, upon whom he once centered hope and pride, but whom he now sees in the clutches of the skeleton-god, shortly to bear him to the grave. Such also is the assurance that the consistent Eddyite would offer you when, as a spectator, you witness the harrowing scene of a man dragged from beneath the wheels of a trolley car — his lower limbs ground into an unsightly pulp of blood and bone and rags. "No break- age nor dislocation can really occur.'' ("Sci- ence and Health," pg. 402.) The man writhing in his blood may appeal to his exposed and quivering nerves, that he feels the pain, — the pale spectators may argue that with their eyes they see the mutilated limbs. But, foolish mortals! therein precisely lies the fatal error. "Realize that the evidence of the senses is not to be accepted in the case of sickness, any more than it is in the case of sin." ("Science and Health," pg. 386.) 30 All Disease the Result of Education. Therefore, we are not ill, we are not racked with pain, we are not wounded by the assas- sin's bullet, nay, we are not even stretched out a lifeless corpse as the deadly missive speeds through the center of the heart — no, victims of false belief, we imagine it all. For teaches Mrs. Eddy: ''Damp atmosphere and freezing snow empurpled the plump cheeks of our an- cestors, but they never indulged in the refine- ment of inflamed bronchial tubes. They were as innocent as Adam, before he ate the fruit of false knowledge, of the existence of tuber- cles and troches, lungs and lozenges." (''Sci- ence and Health," pg. 175.) "All disease is the result of education." ("Science and Health," pg. 176.) Nay, even horse-diseases are "the result of education," for Mrs. Eddy writes : ' ' You can even educate a healthy horse so far in physiology that he will take cold with- out his blanket, whereas the wild animal, left to his instincts, sniffs the wind with delight. The epizootic is a humanly evolved ailment, which a wild horse might never have." ("Sci- ence and Health," pg. 179.) Christian Science Would Cure Disease by Denying Its Existence. Belief and education! Upon their truth or falsity depends either the "glowing exuberance 31 of health" or the '' wasting of dire and ravag- ing disease." False belief inaugurated into the world the drama of sickness and wretched- ness, of blood and death. Now, correct that erroneous belief, invert the idea of sickness, ^'turn his gaze from the false evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts of Soul and immortal being. Tell him that he suffers only as the insane suffer, from false beliefs" (*^ Sci- ence and Health," pg. 420), and behold the wondrous change and glorious result! The demon spectre of plague absconds, the rattling- skeleton of death, with the scythe upon his shoulder, scampers away, and the golden days of Paradise burst anew, where neither pain does hurt, nor fever burn. But, alas, methinks it is all a dream. Unconscious Patients Incapable of False Belief. Have you watched the babe contort and twitch its infant features in pain? The fright- ened mother will summon the physician, who will administer medicine for colic. The Eddy- ite, however, will say it is a case of false belief. But how can that infant, in whose mind not even the first rays of intelligence have as yet burst, exercise belief, true or false? On his bed the typhoid-stricken patient rolls and tosses. Again, ^' false belief"! But how can that mind, maddened with raging fever 32 and stupefied into nnconsciousness, exercise belief, correctly or erroneously? Down the hatchway of the lumber-schooner the stevedore falls. He is picked up a limp and unconscious form, with a fractured skull. Again perhaps, ''false belief"! With brain deranged, the gray matter perhaps oozing through the rift, and in the 'soul the darkness of absolute insensibility reigning, how can that man think that his head is split open! Unconscious Patients Incapable of Correcting False Belief. Now, these patients sometimes recover. To the infant a dose of catnip is given, and the paroxysms of pain disappear. On the steve- dore an operation is performed, the surgeon with deft hand lifting the bone of the skull resting on the brain, and consciousness returns. We assert the recovery was due to the efficacy of the medicine and to the science of surgery. The Christian Scientist, however, will argue, no, the patient merely corrected his belief, dis- engaging himself from the erroneous idea that he was afflicted. But how can an unconscious patient correct his belief, argue himself into a state of health? Then it must have been due to the faith that the patient reposed in the medicine, namely, in its curative virtue. But, I ask, was not the medicine administered, the 33 operation performed, whilst the patient was still incapable of thought and volition? How could he elicit an act of faith that the medicine would give him a new lease on life? Drugs Produce Effects by Imputed Virtue. But granted that the patient were conscious and capable of thought, why, as a matter of fact and undeniable observation, will a small dose of arsenic benefit him, whilst a large dose proves his undoing? Depends that also on faith? Dr. Marston writes: ^'The not uncom- mon notion that drugs possess absolute, inher- ent, curative virtues of their own involves an error. Arnica, quinine, opium could not pro- duce the effects ascribed to them except by imputed virtue. "Men think they will act thus in the physical system, and consequently they do. The prop- erty of alcohol is to intoxicate ; but if the com- mon thought had endowed it with a nourishing quality like milk, it would produce a similar effect." Intoxicated at the Buttermilk Counter. Suicide by Swallowing Cough-Medicine! Accordingly, if the general belief prevailed, that milk were an intoxicant and alcohol a nutrient, men after a long sitting at the butter- milk counter would reel homewards in the same 34 zigzag course as after leaving the corner saloon in the early hours of the morning, whereas if a growing child or an emaciated convalescent would swallow an otherwise staggering dose of alcohol, it would prove to be a true tonic, feeding the nerves and giving fresh vigor. Or, to apply the same principle to other drugs and medicines, if catnip were conceived to be a deadly poison, then its taking would produce the same fatal results as a dose of strychnine or perhaps carbolic acid. But now let us ask — suppose one person with suicidal intent swal- lows, by mistake, cough-medicine for strychnine and another person, to relieve a slight cold, takes strychnine for cough-medicine, why then should not the effect upon the body in both cases correspond to the belief that is attached to each respectively? Yet we know, aside of a slight dizziness, the small dose of quinine will leave the one of unrequited love quite hale and sound, whilst the strychnine, though taken by mistake, likely will mean a free transporta- tion to the city morgue. Majority Opinion Rules. Majority Opinion Enters Not into the Matter. But Mrs. Eddy, unruffled, presses the further explanation, and we think to more glowing ab- surdities, saying, ''In such cases a few persons believe the potion swallowed by the patient to 35 be harmless, but the vast majority of mankind, though they know nothing of this particular case and this special person, believe the arsenic, the strychnine, or whatever the drug used, to be poisonous, for it is set down as a poison by mortal mind." (''Science and Health," pg. 177.) Hence, similarly as in political elections, majority rules — the thought of the larger part of mankind pitted against and preponderating over that of the lesser part. But, I ask, how can the majority opinion enter into the matter at all! It knows not even of the existence of the particular drug. Concede that a chemical deterioration has occurred, why loses the medi- cine the potency it formerly possessed? Neither you nor I nor the rest of men were aware of the fact of the change; and yet the medicine that formerly possessed all the virulence lurk- ing in the poison bags of a rattlesnake, now perhaps is as harmless as the water of a moun- tain brook. Why argue further? Mrs. Eddy has sweep- ingly denied the existence of body and disease, medicine and poison. With what consistency can she speak of recovery or of death, attrib- ute health to medicine or death to poison? Consistency, however, appears to be a minor virtue among the Eddyites. I know from per- sonal statements, that in this city Christian Scientists visit a certain herb specialist. They 36 proffer the explanation that God created the herbs. But are not finally the majority of medicines extracted from herbs? And are not herbs, even when prepared by Chinese special- ists, still medicine? Moreover, Arthur Preuss, in the issue of his Review for August, 1902, writes that Mrs. Eddy had a tooth drawn. In- deed, there is nothing extraordinary in an old woman having a decaying molar extracted. But knowing the position of Christian Science relative to the existence of tooth and pain, we marvel over Mrs. Eddy's conduct. We can hardly believe that she was so vain in her last days, as to submit to the painful operation merely for the purpose of increasing her beauty ! We do not criticise Christian Scientists for seeking the services of a dentist. It demon- strates that, despite Christian Science, they still retain some of the common sense they in- herited from their grandparents. But we ask them, how can they hold a philosophy assert- ing that tooth and forceps and dentist are folly, and still ask the dentist to employ those same forceps on their jaws, or, what is more puzzling, how, after the material tooth has been extracted and they have the ideal state of nothingness existing in its place, can they be- come so enamored of matter as to feel the need 37 of having an artificial tooth inserted? (A. C. Dixon.) Mechanical Injuries to the Body. The Un- thinking Lobster, a Perfect Christian Scientist. But to return from the digression — let us consider the theory of Mrs. Eddy regarding mechanical injuries to the body. In ''Science and Health," page 423, she writes: ''Bones have only the substantiality of thought which forms them." And on page 472 (74 ed., "Science and Health") : "When the unthinking lobster loses his claw it grows again. If the science of health were understood, it would be found that the senses of the mind are never lost, and that matter has no sensation. Then the human limb would be replaced as readily as the lobster's claw — not with an artificial limb, no, but with a genuine one." We are not so envious as to begrudge the blushing- lobster the eulogy that Mrs. Eddy bestows upon him for being a perfect Christian Scien- tist, still we are constrained to ask, how can a lobster lose a claw, since claw is matter, and matter is nothing? and how can he be equipped with a new and second one, since the newly acquired member also would be matter, and again matter is nothing? Lose nothing, and 38 replace it with nothing? Thus equivalently Mrs. Eddy. In Christian Science the Insane Are Immune from Disease and Accident. But accepting the lobster illustration, the conclusion is evident that all who are as irra- tional and dumb as the snapping lobster are immune from every disease and sickness, and accident. Hence, all degenerates, lunatics, idiots, ought to be able to sever their hands and feet, nose and ears, at will — and replace them with new ones. Pity 'tis, we all are not lobsters! Still all of us can leap from the dizzy heights of a precipice, fall from Zeppe- lins, roll under the grinding wheels of the loco- motive, for says Mrs. Eddy, '^ bones have only the substance of thought,'' — and you cannot grind a thought even under the ponderous wheels of a locomotive. Insane Asylums — Temples of Hygeia. Accept, then, the teachings of Christian Sci- ence and every insane asylum becomes a temple of Hygeia; for lunatics, in whom reason has been dethroned, exercise no belief — they are quite similar to the ''unthinking lobster." Christian Science Puts a Premium on Igno- rance. Blots Out Knowledge of Sani- tation, Medicine and Surgery. Accept the teachings of Christian Science, 39 and all the proud and marvelous progress that knowledge and sanitary science have made, is but retrogression; knowledge is simply a curse, and a premium is to be set upon ignorance. Accept the teachings of Christian Science, and the city of San Francisco has exploited your hard-earned money by rearing the City and County, the Emergency and the Detention Hospitals. They are indeed magnificent build- ings, yet they serve only to foster a popular and fatal delusion. Systems of sanitation, the flushing of streets, proper sewerage, are sources of worthless expenditure and wasted funds. Microbes of smallpox and typhoid are but ^'bugs" in your deluded minds; reeking and pestilential marshes are as sweet and healthy as dew-laden flowers glistening in the morning sun. Christian Science Contradicts the Bible. Bereft of every shred of sense or logic, this mountebank, like so many others who prey upon public credulity, must steal the name of Jesus and the cloak of Christianity! Yet, there is not an inspired scriptural writer, from Moses who recorded the punishment inflicted upon a fallen race, to the Seer of Patmos who predicted the various plagues, that Mrs. Baker Eddy does not antagonize and contradict, — thus rendering the Bible, with its continuous 40 tale of woe and pain, one long tale of lie and imposition. St. Paul Not a Christian Scientist. St. Paul, whom I consider every bit as thor- ough a Christian as Mrs. Eddy, writes to Timothy, his disciple, ''Use a little wine for thy stomach's sake." Did the Apostle suffer an acute attack of false belief in the existence of wine and stomach, or was he positively so unprincipled as to confirm his disciple in error, and lend credence to a falsehood for genera- tions to come! Christian Science Destroys the Proving Poiver of the Works of Christ. Unchristian as is "Christian Science," it is also positively anti-christian. The disciples of St. John the Baptist asked the Savior, ''Art Thou He, who art to come, or shall we look for another!" Christ answered, "Go, relate to John, what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, ' ' etc. Now, why pointed the God-man to these phenomena? Were they not works that by reason of their miraculous and super- natural character were calculated to prove be- yond argument His claims to the Messiahship? Did not He Himself issue the challenge to the doubting bystanders, "If you do not believe 41 Me, believe My works?" But, if according to the teachings of Christian Science, those men in the Gospel were not lame and blind, then the fact that they walked and saw, was most un- miraculous and quite natural. The supernatu- ral and extraordinary, namely, the cures ef- fected by Christ, presupposes the existence of the natural and ordinary, namely, of diseases. Thus Mrs. Eddy impudently would destroy the proving power that Christ attaches to the works He performed among the people of Palestine. Jesus Christ the Good Samaritan. Christian Science the Proud Priest. Christian Science claims to be the religion of Jesus Christ. But what bears it in common with suffering humanity's greatest Friend, to bear out its claim? Jesus Christ is the good Samaritan who, touched with compassion, bound the wounds of the man fallen among robbers, and bore him to a haven of rest and peace. Eddyism, however, like the haughty and supercilious priest and levite, passes by the afflicted and unfortunate traveler on the way of life, without a tear or throb of pity, without moving a hand to close his bleeding wounds, without administering a particle of medicine to revive his drooping strength, with- out an asylum or hospital to its credit to house 42 him during the days of convalescence. For the dictum of Christian Science is, "Sympathy with sin, sorrow, and sickness would dethrone God.'' The most that Christian Science does is to induce man to say, "There is no pain, there is no death." This, however, compels him to play the hypocrite, stultify his intellect, forfeit the service and aid of anaesthetics and surgery, thus a hundred fold to increase his sufferings, and for all this misery to pay hard cash. Now judge ye, if this system that closes its ears to the cry of sick children dying on their mothers' bosoms, that dries up the fountains of sympathy and love for your sick and invalid, that, if it could obtain full dominion, would change a civilized and Christian land into a pagan India with the horrors of the Kiver Ganges, be the religion of Jesus Christ,^ — or if it be not preparing itself for the curse that .will fall from His own sacred lips on the final day: "I was hungry, and you gave Me not to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me not to drink; I was a stranger, and you took Me not in; naked, and you covered Me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit Me." (Matt. 25:42, 43.) "Depart from Me you cursed into everlasting fire." (Matt. 25:41.) Finally cast one more glance upon the system of Mrs. Eddy as far as she claims it to be 43 *' Science." Not only did Mrs. Baker Eddy, during the days when as a gray-haired, stiff- jointed, old and palsied woman, she hid herself from public gaze, prove a living embodiment of the errors of her teachings, but now above all does her corpse, lying in the cold and moul- dering grave at Mt. Auburn, prove to absolute conclusiveness that her "Science" also is des- tined to the same fate of decay and oblivion. MAN IS INCAPABLE OF SIN "If we say that we have no sin, zve deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." I John 1 :8. In the Garden of Eden man first sinned. Direful and terrible was the punishment that fell upon him from the lips of the angered Almighty. But did man profit by its infliction! No! Despite the fact that he was exiled by the avenging angel to wander over the barren wastes of the plain and through the valleys, replete with thorns and thistles, still his record quite consistently has been one of rebellion and transgression and sin. In the Past Sinning Man Bemoaned His Fall. Still if in times gone by man sinningly erred, he was ashamed of his transgressions. The first parents after their fall sought conceal- ment in the shrubbery of the Garden; Cain, haunted by the cry of his brother's blood, in remorse wandered over the face of the earth. David bemoaned his sins in ashes and sack- cloth. Nay, even the renegade Apostle con- fessed, ^'I have betrayed innocent blood," and 45 maddened by the enormity of his guilt sus- pended himself with a halter. In This Age Some Deny Their Guilt. Through the centuries the drama of sin and crime continues. Today also men sin, yield to the seductions of the lying serpent, transgress the Law Divine. But behold, some in this late age even go farther. They not only violate the Commandments, but in their insolence and anarchy turn to the Almighty Lawgiver and Sovereign God, and declare they have not sinned. Man Incapable of Sin. Thus spoke in New England a woman, who declared in her book ("Science and Health," pg. 459, 74 ed.) : ''Man is incapable of sin." (Pg. 480): "Evil is an illusion. It is false belief." "The only reality of sin is the awful fact that unrealities seem real." ("Science and Health," pg. 456, 74 ed.) The tragedy of sin, accordingly, that in our belief, has filled the world with moan and sigh, destroyed in man the bloom of innocence and streaked the pages of history with the scarlet of crime, and rendered the world a stench in the nostrils of Jehovah, so that only the life- blood of His Son shed in sacrifice saved it from being hurled into perdition — is not real, but a 46 mere pliantasmal picture thrown upon the screen of the imagination. Christian Science Not Irksome. Need we now marvel that in this age, chaf- ing under the yoke of the Commandments, snarling at the restraint of spirit over passion and flesh, assailing the lofty ideals of morality, as superstition born of priestcraft, such a doc- trine should find wide acceptance! For if ^^man is incapable of sin," then he never sins. If he never sins, then there is no guilt. If there is no guilt, then no just condemnation is pos- sible. The Tendency of the Doctrine of Christian Science Relative to' Sin. Not for a moment will I affirm that Chris- tian Scientists love not virtue, cherish not chastity, exalt not honesty. Still if they are chaste and honest and pure, it is not by means or because of Christian Science, but rather, and I shall not hesitate to utter it, in spite of Christian Science. For beguiled oftentimes by the specious promise of obtaining health of body and serenity of soul, they have unfor- tunately hearkened to the voice of a teacher, announcing a doctrine, which, if literally re- duced to practice and consistently carried out, would break down every barrier and restraint, 47 eliminate every boundary line between virtue and vice, open the flood gates of impurity, and give free rein to degeneracy and crime. Christian Science Destructive of the Ethical, Moral and Judicial Sciences. We have witnessed Mrs. Eddy, maintaining the non-existence of matter and sickness, assail the physical, psychological and medical sci- ences. In denying the reality of evil and sin she has formed a new plank, and with it she threatens destruction to the ethical and judicial sciences. If there exists no line of demarcation be- tween good and evil, if man is incapable of exercising free choice for good or evil, and, consequently, is not a moral and a responsible being, if sin is not only not a fact, but not so much as a possibility, what remains of the science of ethics and morality? Upon the human heart nature has impressed the rudiments of the moral law. From these primary laws the Sages of antiquity, the Fathers of the early Christian centuries, the Schoolmen of the medieval ages, the teachers in modern theological seminaries and colleges of law, have drawn further conclusions, more minute and defined, and have elaborated a code, calculated to make the world and mankind more honest and gentle and pure. But if the tenets 48 of Mrs. Eddy be correct, then the moralists have contributed their time and energy in rearing sciences whose foundations rest upon illusions — nay, we could charge them with having placed all the world under the tyran- nical sway of an erroneous and false con- science. Nor is this all. If ' ' man is incapable of sin, ' ' what purpose and object is there in judicial science? For if there is no sin, there can be no guilt. Where then the sense of endeavoring to establish guilt? Moreover, if there is no guilt, where the right and the guarantee to pass condemnation and inflict punishment? If the whole world be as crimeless and sinless as Mrs. Baker Eddy conceives it, why should civ- ilized lands maintain at an enormous expense judiciary systems? All fail of object and pur- pose. If the Criminal Be a Christian Scientist. A few weeks ago there was perpetrated in the city of San Francisco a damnable outrage, that bespattered with blood the pavement of Market Street and littered it with shattered bone and bleeding limbs. A mingled feeling of horror and indignation arose from every normal heart. Every effort that commonwealth can exert, was made to apprehend the villain and 49 to convict him of his crime in order that sen- tence may be passed upon him. I am expressing no opinion as to the identity of the culprit. But if he or she be a consistent Eddyite thus may the case be argued: ''Those bystanders, hale and sound that afternoon, but now lying in their graves, were neither maimed nor killed. Whyf Because 'no breakage nor dislocation can really occur' ('Science and Health,' pg. 402) and 'there is no death.' ('Science and Health,' pg. 426, 74 ed.) More- over, though I constructed and set off that infernal machine, I committed no sin and con- tracted no guilt. Why I Because 'man is in- capable of sin.' ('Science and Health,' pg. 459, 74 ed.) Hence you cannot judge me guilty nor impose a penalty." That man may be convicted by the testimony of a thousand wit- nesses ; he may confess his deed and crime with his own lips; yet if Christian Science be adopted, thus he may argue ; and if Mrs. Eddy be also our teacher, we must accept his argu- ments and conclusions, and bestow upon him the kiss of peace. Justice Blinded — Anarchy Rampant. With bated breath and harrowing sense of fear we witness to what lengths the theories of Mrs. Eddy would lead us. Not a murderer or villain, not a degenerate or adulterer, not a 50 robber or embezzler, but with whom we should fraternize and whom we should clasp in loving embrace as our innocent brother. Not a prose- cuting attorney, but who is obtaining money under false pretenses. Not a judge, who inflicts punishment, but who is inflicting suffering upon the innocent, and should be stripped of his ermine. Not a criminal behind prison bars, but who, though his hands be reddened with the blood of his brother, and though he may have robbed woman of her fairest flower, may not plead that the prison doors be flung open and liberty be granted him. Not a State peni- tentiary, but whose walls should be razed and reduced to smouldering ruins. Thus from her pedestal the heroic figure of justice, upholding the scales and the sword, would be hurled to fragments on the pavement below. The de- mand of the creditor would be in vain, the pleading of the orphaned and helpless disre- garded, the cry of outraged innocence choked, — and grim-visaged and bloody-eyed sin would hold reign in this night of license. There lurk in the dark haunts of the city, there stalk about past the midnight hour, some who would welcome this advent of anarchy, — but we and, we doubt not, all respectable Christian Scientists are stricken with horror at its mere possibility. Yet thither would soci- ety hasten, if despite the testimony of our con- 51 science the tenets of Mrs. Baker Eddy, viz., ''man is incapable of sin" and ''evil is an illu- sion," were accorded belief, and were to be- come the norm and standard of our lives and actions. The Ten Commandments Not a Joke. But besides the catastrophe that would ensue upon the adoption of the tenet of Eddyism re- garding sin, there are further reasons, namely, scriptural, that should impel us forever to re- ject the teaching that sin is an illusion. Above reigns a Sovereign Lord and God, whose wis- dom and omnipotence fashioned and made us. We are His creatures and dependents. On Mt. Sinai, amid the blinding flash of lightning and deafening peal of thunder, He gave the ten Commandments engraven upon two tablets of stone. Now, to transgress those Divine Com- mandments, is either a sin or not a sin. If it is a sin, then Mrs. Eddy's theory, viz., "Man is incapable of sin," and "Evil is an illusion," is false. If it is not a sin, and Mrs. Baker Eddy is correct, then the Almighty Legislator must have been in jesting mood, and the heav- ens lighted up with lightning flashes, with the old prophet of the past Dispensation trembling with awe, merely a dramatic setting to empha- size the farce. But why did not the Divine Legislator and 52 His prophet tell ns that merely a joke was being passed upon the human race? Why did not Moses returning from the Mount proclaim to the sons of Israel that the ten Command- ments were merely plays and outbursts of humor on the part of Jehovah? Why, on the contrary, did he inscribe them in the Bible, the most serious book ever written? Why did God Almighty Himself instill the fear into our heart, that every time we transgressed those Commandments, we committed sin, we incurred His displeasure and were rendering ourselves liable to the flames of hell? Why? Because, as matter of fact, and despite Mrs. Eddy, they are not a joke, but as seriously made and im- posed as God alone could make and impose them. The God of omnipotence, justice, sanc- tity — jesting with and fooling His creatures!! The High Priestess of Concord may endeavor to reduce the Almighty God to this humiliating position, by telling us, we incur no sin when we transgress His commands and are foolish for experiencing pang and scruple. But we regard her action as blasphemy. We recoil from it. We shudder at the mere thought of it. We believe that God Almighty was serious, nay, intensely serious. Why Punishes God the Sinner? Moreover, if sin is an illusion, why does God 53 inflict punishment for its commission! The pages of the Bible burn, nay, curl and turn crisp with the fire and wrath breathed upon those who thwart the will of the Creator and break His Commandments. In the 13th chap- ter of the Book of Isaias, the Prophet predicts the desolation to descend upon the city of Babylon in the following words: ''Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation and of wrath and of fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sin- ners thereof out of it." In the 19th chapter of Genesis is described the storm of fire and brimstone, that swept over the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah, leaving direful devastation in its wake. Why Suffer the Damned f But why speak of the flames of earth? Could we but thrust aside the curtains of eternity, and gaze into those fiery depths where languish the disembodied souls ! Why that holocaust — why those lurid flames — why those soul- harrowing torments'? Those, that suffer there- in, lived their days upon the earth. They, indeed, transgressed the Commandments Di- vine, deprived the widow of her portion, plunged the cold steel into their brother's heart, spent their nights in ribaldry and las- civiousness. But, if Mrs. Eddy's contention is 54 true that man is incapable of sin, and that evil is an illusion, evidently they incurred no guilt. Why then were they condemned! Why upon them was passed the irate sentence, '* Depart from me ye accursed into everlasting fire"? Has God lost His sense of justice and stripped Himself of mercy? Like fiend and monster does He gloat over the sufferings of those who were "incapable of sin"? No. Ah, those very agonizing souls in the flames proclaim His justice. Could once their voice be heard rising from that pit of fire and dun- geon of hell, they would proclaim to us whether or not sin is a reality. In the mad paroxysms of their crimes they may have declared to God Almighty and boasted to man, ''Sin is false belief," but the flaring fires of hell have en- lightened them to know better, namely, that sin is reality, nay dread reality. Why Died Christ on Calvary? \^ Mrs. Eddy Beneath the Cross? I close this lecture with the scene on Mount Caivary. The sun has slightly passed the meridian. A cry startles the appalling still- ness, "My God, my God, why hast Thou for- saken me?" Nailed to the Tree of shame hangs the Son of God. His sacred head is encircled with thorns. His countenance is swollen and His eyes are shot with blood. 55 From ^ve deep and gaping wounds gushes forth in crimson streams His life-blood. Oh! that Priestess of New England who nineteen centuries later proclaimed a religion in His name and exploited the love we bear Him for commercial aggrandizement, — oh! had she stood that hot sultry afternoon beneath that cross, with the hot and ruddy drops from the veins of the dying God-man trickling, nay, gushing forth and drenching her garments, would she from beneath that cross, I ask, have proclaimed to the world that He, the Son of the living God, was dying for "mere nothing- ness,'' for a "false belief"? So bitter was the chalice into which had been pressed the sins and iniquities of the world, that even His own stout heart quailed, and from His own sacred lips escaped the cry, "May this chalice pass from me," so intensely hated His Heavenly Father sin, that He hesi- tated not to smite with His wrath His only begotten Son, so deeply had sin outraged the Divine and Supreme Majesty that only then was the anger of the Father of Heaven Ap- peased when the thorn-crowned head of His Son bowed in death, and still Mrs. Baker Eddy, the foundress of Christian Science, declared to the world that sin is an illusion. Oh ! may that blood that she contemns as having been spilled for a mere illusion cry not out against her on the day of wrath and judgment. CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. THE CULT OF THE INFIDEL "Your eyes shall be opened; and you shall be as Gods." Gen. 3:5. Men, denying the truth of the creation of the universe, have erred in either of two direc- tions. They have either denied the existence of God, or have exalted the universe to the supreme plane of the Deity. Both, so to speak, stand on a high and com- manding promontory, jutting out from some lofty mountain. Below them they behold the deep and wide valleys, the rolling plains and prairies, the sparkling lakes and winding rivers, the cities and hamlets, with the thou- sands that there live and labor. Both men affirm that all the magnificent panorama of sky and land and water below them, is uncreated and self-existent. The one, however, denies there is a God, spiritual and infinite in nature, and exclaims, ^'God created man? No such thing. The monads developed him. The heav- ens declare the glory of God? No such thing. They declare only the glory of the astronomer. 57 We have no need of the hypothesis of God. The divine existence is not only unnecessary, but absolutely unreal — a creature of the human imagination.'^ Thus has spoken the atheist and materialist. The other, however, maintains that all that they behold is God. This man is a pantheist. Both, denying the record of the Scriptures, are manifestly at variance with the teachings of Christianity and are unquestion- ably infidels. Infidelity! Infidelity! a stinging and mean charge, and emphatically such if we predicate it of one claiming to possess a superior understanding, and professing to come in the name of God for the alleviation of woe and misery oppressing mankind. True, Mrs. Eddy stoutly cast back this charge, and her disciples today hotly resent our making the imputation. We do not desire to stir up their wrath and indignation, but if we study the teachings of Christian Science regarding God and His nature, we are constrained to make the above-mentioned charge. Christian Science, Dangerous Form of Pantheism, Quasi-parodoxical expressions, quasi-philo- sophical terms, nugatory statements, flat con- 58 tradictions form one amazing mass of tangle and confusion in the writings of Mrs. Eddy. We read and endeavor to understand, but the mind grows bewildered, and is overwhelmed with a feeling similar to that which neuritis produces in the body. Still, if at the conclusion the reader retains the use of his faculties and is not hypnotized, he lays down the book with the conviction that, though it is labeled ^'Chris- tian," it nevertheless contains an admixture of Brahmin Theosophy, ancient Gnosticism, Mani- chseism, and, forming the largest portion, Hin- doo Pantheism. Mrs. Eddy's Egregious Blunder. Her Arbi- trary Definition of Pantheism. Pan- theism Correctly Defined. Mrs. Eddy answering the question, whether or not Christian Science is pantheistic, affirms, ''Christian Science refutes Pantheism, finds Spirit neither in matter nor in the modes of mortal mind.'' ("No and Yes," pg. 15, 95 ed.). Mrs. Eddy frames a novel and" a convenient definition of her own, and then quite readily frees herself from the charge of being a pantheist. She indicates that panthe- ism is the belief of spirit and intelligence existing in matter. Now, if this be pantheism, it is evident that Christian Science, denying matter and hence intelligence in matter, is any- 59 thing but pantheistic. But Mrs. Eddy has elab- orated an arbitrary, and not only that, but a wrong definition of pantheism. Any culprit before the bar could frame his own defini- tion of a crime and then demand that he be declared innocent. For instance, a robber could assert that theft means the slaying of a man, — and then argue, "I have killed no man, — therefore, I am no thief.'' We would have no mercy on that man, but judge him according to the definition which really sets forth the nature of the crime. So also Mrs. Eddy must answer to the charge of pantheism, not as she defines it, but according to that what all men believe it to be, namely, the doctrine which asserts that God is the only substance, of which the universe and man are only manifestations, — the doctrine, accordingly, which identifies God and the universe, and is accompanied with the denial of God's personality. Some panthe- ists maintain and assert the existence of mat- ter; others, as idealist pantheists, deny it. However, they all agree that all that exists, whether it be material or not, is God. Pure Pantheism. Hence if Mrs. Eddy declares, ''Nothing pos- sesses reality or substance, except Mind, God,'' how can she escape the charge! In "Science and Health," p. 466, she asks the question, 60 ''What are spirits and souls!" She answers, '/To human belief they are personalities con- stituted of mind and matter, life and death, truth and error, good and evil. The term souls or spirits is as improper as the term gods. Soul or Spirit signifies Deity, and noth- ing else. There is no finite soul or spirit." According to her own words, therefore, there is only one soul or spirit, "since the term souls or spirits is as improper as the term gods." This one soul or spirit is not finite (there is no finite soul or spirit), but "signifies the Deity, and nothing else." Do we grasp the meaning of Mrs. Eddy's words? If so, what do they embody but pantheism, bald and bla- tant, pantheism that echoes the error of cen- turies before Christ, namely, "Brahma is all, and all is Brahma, and whatever is not Brahma is a dream and an illusion"? Christian Science Denies God's Creation. In the teachings of Mrs. Eddy there lives only one being — uncreated and uncreating; un- created — because if that one being were cre- ated, his creation would demand the existence of a being who created him, and hence there would be two beings; uncreating — because if the uncreated being created, then his creature would mean the existence of another being, and hence, again, there would be two beings. Mrs. 61 Eddy, therefore, necessarily must eliminate the ideas of creator and creature. The Term "Expression'' — Pantheistic. Christian Science writers, in the endeavor to save their "Mother'' from the ugly charge and conviction of being pantheistic, attempt the explanation that the universe is an expression of the Divine Mind. But what meaning can the term "expression'' have in Mrs. Eddy's system! Christian Science negates the exist- ence of matter, and teaches that all is "Spirit," and whatever is not this "Spirit," is unreal. Consequently the term "expression" when ap- plied to man and the universe can only mean that man and universe form a certain mode of being of this one and only existing "Spirit." They are, so to speak, what bubbles are on the bosom of the ocean. But as waves and bubbles and ocean form in reality only one being, namely, ocean — so also whether the uni- verse be called an expression or not, it and God form only one being, and according to the declarations of Christian Science this being is God. "God is all, and all is God." Appalling Absurdities. Man Is God. To what appalling absurdities the pantheism lurking in the teachings of Eddyism would lead us, we need not indicate: Mrs. Eddy does it 62 herself. Writing in ' ' Science and Health, ' ' pg. 619 of Index (74 ed.), she says, ^'He is self- existent and eternal, like God." Man, accord- ingly, has neither origin nor beginning. Be- fore he stepped upon this globe, he pre-existed. ''If man did not exist before the material or- ganization began, he could not exist after the body is disintegrated. If we live after death and are immortal, we must have lived before birth, for if Life ever had any beginning, it must also have an ending, even according to the calculations of natural science." (''Science and Health," pg. 429.) He had neither a father, who begot him, nor a mother, of whose flesh he was conceived, and who bore him. He never was young nor does he grow old. "He has neither birth nor death." ("Science and Health," pg. 244.) If through some form of mortal error you believe yourself at some time to have rested as an infant upon your mother's bosom, you were not one fraction of a moment younger than you are at this present moment, even though the snows of life's winter be fast gath- ering over your brow. "Man in Science is neither young nor old. He has neither birth nor death." ("Science and Health," pg. 244.) What wonder that Christian Science has grown so popular! Surely a happy find for those ashamed of their age. For Christian Science 63 says : ' ' Never record ages. Chronological data are no part of the vast forever. Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood. " (^ ^ Science and Health/' pg. 246.) God Is One. All Men Form One Being. Vain and false is also every census. The human family never added a new member, nor did it ever lose one. In fact, in Christian Sci- ence we dare not speak of a human family. For a family presupposes a plurality of per- sons, whereas in ''Science,'' since all men are God and God is only one, there is only one being. Accordingly, just and unjust are only one; saint and sinner are only one; wise and unwise are only one; rich and poor are only one. Thus, Cain and Abel were not separate individuals, but identical; Caesar and Brutus were not distinct, but identical; Jesus and Judas were not distinct, but identical; nay, the Kaiser of Germany and the Czar of Russia are not separate individuals, but identical; finally, Mrs. Eddy and you and I are only one — and this one being is the one Divine and Infinite Spirit. Accordingly, when Cain slew Abel it was the one being both killing and being killed; when Judas betrayed Christ, it was the one being- betraying and being betrayed. When Mrs. 64 Eddy pronounces her teachings scientific and Christian and I designate them as humbug and blasphemy, it is the one being simultaneously calling them truth and error. God Is Man. Thus far we have predicated of man the at- tributes that belong to God. But since man and God are identical, we may pursue a differ- ent course of argument and attribute to God all that pertains to man. Blasphemy! Appalling! Accordingly, God is the grim-visaged mur- derer; God is the glib-tongued liar; God is the smooth-shaven adulterer; God is the cactus- bearded villain of Mexico. Moreover, since God is identical with all these men, it follows that all their actions also are those of God. When the murderer, therefore, dips his hands in the blood of his fellow man, it is God who murders; when the adulterer crosses the threshold of a home and there spreads the slime of his impurity, it is God that commits adultery; when the villains in Mexico dese- crate sanctuaries, mutilate men and violate vir- gins, it is God who commits those outrages. Hence all the misery, all the woe, all the im- morality that has filled the world with shame and despair, have emanated from the one Infi- 65 nite Being. Behold the God whom Mrs. Baker Eddy would set up for veneration and love to those who follow her voice. Perhaps she does it not intentionally, but it is a necessary con- sequence of her teachings. Moreover, since '^God is all, and all is God,'' when man is sick, when the typhoid patient raves in delirium, when the leper smells with the malodor of the grave, when the soldier is shot and torn by shell and bullet on the battle- field, when the suicide turns the gun upon him- self, God it is who is sick, who is stricken with fever, who is wounded, who commits suicide, who is killed. ''Mortal Mind'' Theory Offers No Refuge, Christian Science may try to rally to the defense and insist, ' ' Hold ! sin and sickness and death are mere illusions of the mortal mind." But now that '' mortal mind" either exists or does not exist. If it does not exist, how can it harbor illusions'? If it does exist, then, since "God is all, and all is God," it is identical with Mind, God. Mrs. Eddy may have the alterna- tive of choosing either for glaring nonsense or for shocking blasphemy. The God of Christian Science a Monstrosity. Candidly — I think, were the teachings of Mrs. Eddy urged to their ultimate conclusion, 66 we should discover that Christian Science has no God at all, but that it is a system absolutely Godless. For — in the light of Christian Sci- ence — regard Him as a Principle, and He is a Principle self-contradicting, at once right and wrong, a nonentity as impossible of being as a circle round and square ; regard Him as a per- son, and He is a monster with truth and error simultaneously upon His tongue, breathing hot and cold in the one and the same breath, with virtue and vice simultaneously in His heart. Christian Science Impudently Assails the Dogma of the Trinity. Mrs. Eddy has set forth the dictum, ''God is all, and all is God," as the cardinal teaching of her system — and you have beheld what she has made of God. And yet she dares to assail the supreme dogma of our Christian religion, namely, that of the Blessed Trinity, saying, "The theory of three persons in one (that is, a personal Trinity or Tri-unity) suggests poly- theism, rather than the one ever-present 'I am.' 'Hear, Israel: the Lord our God is one Lord.'" ("Science and Health," pg. 256.) But who is she that would insinuate that we, washed in the waters of regeneration in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, that we, believing in the Trinity, are like the heathens and pagans of old who 67 believed in and worshiped a multiplicity of gods? Who is she that, raising her finger in correction, would point to our belief in the plurality of persons in the Deity as ^' basic of idolatry''? No! we are not heathens, nor do we worship three gods. But more readily would I prostrate myself before three gods like the pagan in the darkness of the forest, than follow the voice of Mrs. Baker Eddy and worship no God at all, — or rather worship every man, including herself, whom she has deified. Christian Science Dethrones God. But as a matter of fact we worship one God only, in whom there are three Divine Persons possessing the one Divine Nature. We con- fess we cannot fathom or comprehend this mystery of three persons possessing one Divine Nature. We accept it with whole-souled faith, we bow our intellects before it. Why? Be- cause God has revealed it, because the Scrip- tures contain it, and because the Church of Jesus Christ proposes it to our belief. But what cares Mrs. Eddy of New England, who founded her own Church, for the Church of Jesus Christ? What cares she for the Scroll of God's Word when she contemns it as a dusty text-book "no more important to our well-being than the history of Europe and 68 America'"? Nay, what cares she for God, Him- self, when she has dethroned Him, reduced Him to an impersonal thing, called Principle, heaped upon Him all the world's huge pile of crime and sin and sickness — and then sub- merged and drowned Him in the ocean of crea- tion! I conclude this lecture with the words of C. A. Dixon: '^It (Christian Science) is guilty, so far as it can be, of deicide." CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. THE CULT OF THE UNCHRISTIAN "Behold thou shalt conceive in thy zvomb, and shalt bring forth a son; and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall he great, and shall be called the Son of the most High." Luke 1:31, 32. During the course of the last few decades advertisement has developed into a fine art. Men of business readily recognize its value, and its progress has paved the way to some of their most colossal successes. A medium, indifferent in its nature, it has been employed in the interests of truth, as well as in the serv- ice of fraud. Mrs. Baker Eddy evidently was not a woman to lack the shrewdness of grasp- ing the value of this medium and of utilizing it to raise a towering fortune. To a people, to whom no name on earth or above earth is more sweet and dear than "Jesus," to a people, for whom no figure in history lives more cherished than the Savior soothing the afflicted and sorrowful of Israel, — shrewd and sly Mrs. Eddy realized that she could sell her ''copyrighted" religion with the largest success and profit, if she clothed it in the cover of 70 Christianity and promised to bring back Christ Jesus into their desolate hearts and mournful souls. Christian Scientists Should Lament As Did the So rroiu ing Magdalene. But, ah, methinks she has cruelly and ruth- lessly deceived and duped them. Mrs. Eddy has labored to convict us of teaching men to hug delusions. But having listened to this woman's teachings regarding the nature of God, regarding the human body, regarding suf- fering and death, I should say it is she who has attempted to foist upon men a mere delu- sion, and who has cruelly swindled from out of their lives the true Christ, so that in truth and fact those who have listened to her voice and followed her teachings, should lament as did the sorrowing Magdalene at the door of the emj)ty tomb, because her Lord had been taken away. Jesus Christ the Mental Offspring of a Perfect Christian Scientist. Incarnation of Christ Not Miraculous. The two chief mysteries in the life of the God-man are undoubtedly His Incarnation and His Death of atonement. Mrs. Eddy, indeed, retains the belief that Jesus Christ was born of a woman who had known no man, and that 71 His birth was virginal. But forthwith disillu- sion your mind, that she consequently regards it in the same sacred light as St. Luke records it in his Gospel, and as we celebrate the event on Christmas Day. No, in the bible of Mrs. Eddy He was but the son of an advanced Christian Scientist. '^ Jesus," she writes, '^was the offspring of Mary's self-conscious com- munion with God." (''Science and Health," pg. 30.) Jesus Christ! — the mental offspring of a woman's consciousness! The Blessed Mother merely caught a gleam of Eddyism! She possessed sufficient ''Science" to create a child by mental generation and thus to "put to silence the material law and its order of generation." Her virginal delivery must be considered precisely the same as that of any other woman who obtains an adequate knowl- edge of Christian Science and can become a virginal mother. Hence there is neither mys- tery nor miracle surrounding the birth of Christ. "Generation rests on no sexual basis." ("Science and Health," pg. 274, 74 ed.) "The so-called substance of bone is formed first by the parent's mind, through self-division. Soon the child becomes a separate, individualized thought." This suffices. This moment Mrs. Eddy should divest herself of the robes of a Christian. She has stolen them. 72 Jesus Is Not the Christ. Dual Personality. In Christian thought and sentiment we wor- ship the Divine Savior as a Divine Person, who to the Divine Nature, that He possessed from all eternity, joined the human nature, which in time He assumed of the Virgin Mary. He gave us assurance for this belief, perhaps, at the most solemn moment of His mortal life. Stand- ing before the Sanhedrim, the supreme religious tribunal of the Jewish nation. He was asked by the High-priest the precise and unequivocal question: "I adjure Thee by the living God, that Thou tell us if Thou be the Christ, the Son of the living God." And Jesus answered him, ^'Thou hast said it." To this categorical affirmation He added, "Hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the power of God and coming in the clouds of heaven." Then the High-priest rent his gar- ments, and said, ''He has blasphemed." Why does not Mrs. Eddy also rend her garments? In her estimation, too, that man Jesus standing there, clad in a body of flesh and blood, was not ''the Christ, the Son of the living God." She writes and confesses this, saying, "Jesus, as material manhood, was not the Christ." (Misc., pg. 84.) JesurS Is Not God. Jesus, therefore, is not regarded by Mrs. 73 Eddy as God, for she says, ^'A portion of God could not enter corporeal mortal man, . . . God can only be reflected by spiritual, incor- poreal man." (''Science and Health," pg. 231, 74 ed.) We can now comprehend how she could write, ''At the time when Jesus felt our infirmities He had not conquered all the beliefs of flesh, or His sense of material life, nor had He risen to His final demonstration of spiritual power." ("Science and Health," pg. 209, 74 ed.) Jesus, accordingly, a plain mortal like ourselves, was steeped in materialism and an individual deluded by mortal error. Very reverential words, Mrs. Eddy ! Compliments of Mrs. Eddy to Christ. On the same page in "Science and Health" she writes, "To accommodate Himself to im- mature ideas of spiritual power, Jesus called the body — He raised from the grave, 'flesh and bones.' " On page 396, she added, "These in- stances show us the concessions which Jesus was willing to make to popular ignorance." For instance, "He sometimes called a disease by name." ("Science and Health," pg. 396, 74 ed.) Mrs. Eddy evidently concedes that at a later period the knowledge of "Science" did dawn upon and enlighten the soul of Jesus; but it seemingly improved not His morals. For though Jesus at that precise time was better 74 informed, still He possessed not the courage of His convictions. For He yielded and made concessions to popular ignorance. Nay, He positively deluded the people by deliberately lying to them, for though He full well knew that flesh and bone were merely dreams of fancy, He, nevertheless, solemnly assured His disciples, ''flesh and bones such as you see Me to have." (Luke 24:29.) Mrs. Baker Eddy has, therefore, given elesus Christ the lie. We must associate her with the motley throng and mob that with perjured oaths clamored for His condemnation, because "He perverted the nation.'^ If in the Mob before the Tribunal of Pilate There Had Been an Eddyite! The drama of the passion opens. From Pilate to Herod, and from Herod to Pilate they have dragged Him. The Eoman Gov- ernor in a final attempt to secure the release of Jesus presents Him to the people with the piteous appeal, "Behold the man!" But from a sea of upturned faces, white as the ocean froth with hate, rises the thunderous cry, like the voice of many waters, "Crucify him! cru- cify him!" Pilate yields and passes the sen- tence of death upon the Savior of mankind. But the Eddyite would rush in and cry out, "Hold! — Crucify whom! Christ, the Divine 75 Idea! Crucify an idea! Absurd! Crucify the corporeal Jesus! Body is an illusion. Crucify an illusion! Equally absurd!" But enough, of Christian Science; the steel hammers driving- the gruesome nails awaken us only too painfully to the fact that the scene on Mt. Calvary is grim reality. Fastened to the cross He hangs between heaven and earth. In sacrificial agony He quivers, He moans, He suffers; finally crying in a loud voice, ''It is finished!" He bows His thorn-crowned head in death. It is finished! Oh! ye, who love and adore that mangled body even in death, hearken to that cry still echoing down the centuries ! What is finished! You and I and all who worship Him as the Redeemer and the Savior, believe that finished and fulfilled is the promise that He made in eternity before His angered Father's throne, the promise, to lay down His life in sacrifice and atonement for us sinners, and to wash away our iniquities in His blood. Christian Science Denies Christ's Atonement. But from beneath that crimson stream of redeeming blood one of the sin-stained children of Adam withdraws. It is Mrs. Baker Eddy, the mother of Christian Science. Denying the reality of sin and that our souls were ever stained or soiled, denying the fumes and flames 76 of hell, denying the reality of nails and wood and cross and flesh, she denies also Christ's death, atonement and sacrifice. In the death- like stillness of Calvary she gazes back over the career of the dead Jesus, and beholds in it not the mission to save men from sin, but from the belief in sin, not to lead men to repent of sin, but to deny sin, for she writes, 'Mesus came to seek and to save such as believe in the reality of the unreal! to save them from this false belief.'' (Misc., pg. 63.) Cold and un- moved she looks upon the crimson pool gath- ered at the foot of the instrument of death, and says of that blood that washed away the sins of the world, ''The material blood of Jesus was no more efficacious to cleanse from sin when it was shed upon 'the accursed tree,' than when it was flowing through His veins, as He went daily about His Father's busi- ness." ("Science and Health," pg. 330, 74 ed.) Even on the Mount of His bloody death she can bring her heart no farther than to pay Him the tribute (tribute!! save the mark!) of being a "way shower" ("Science and Health" Index, pg. 13, 74 ed.). Mrs. Eddy denies the supreme truths of the Christian faith, and she confesses it, writing, "That God's wrath should be vented upon His Beloved Son, is divinely unnatural. It is a man-made theory." ("Sci- ence and Health," pg. 328, 74 ed.) 77 From the sorrowing group on Mt. Golgotha let us remove the figure of Mrs. Eddy. She belongs not there where the Blessed Mother of Jesus and His Penitent Child are crushed in grief and sorrow. The cross yields its burden, and the corpse of the slain God-man rests in the lap of His Mother. In mournful procession He is borne to the rich man's garden. In the hush of night they deposit His mutilated body in the tomb. The seal is affixed on the sepulchre, and the Roman sentry stands guard. But lo ! the dawn of the third day bursts over those Judean hills, and witness! from the tomb of death issues the living Christ, — yes, living, robed in immortality and glorious in the fulfilment of His prophecy, ''Destroy this temple, and in three days I shall rebuild it." Christ in the Sepulchre Not Dead. Gave a Demonstration of the Healing Efficacy of Christian Science. St. Paul wrote, ''If Christ be not risen, then vain is our preaching, and your faith is also vain, yea, and we are found false witnesses." For nineteen centuries the Christian world, in the light of the Apostle's words, has regarded the Resurrection on Easter Morn as the key- stone in the arch of Christianity. But now after the lapse of nineteen centuries it re- 78 mained for a woman in New England to insult the Apostle and designate him as a false wit- ness. For teaches Mrs. Eddy, Christ in the sepulchre lay not in the white sleep of death. He was alive, practicing Christian Science. Thus Mrs. Eddy \^riting in ''Science and Health," pg. 44: "The lonely precincts of the tomb gave Jesus a refuge from His foes, a place in which to solve the great problem of being. His three days' work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time. He proved Life to be deathless and Love to be the master of hate. He met and mastered on the basis of Christian Science, the power of Mind over matter, all the claims of medicine, surgery, and hygiene. "He took no drugs to allay inflammation. He did not depend upon food or pure air to resuscitate wasted energies. He did not re- quire the skill of a surgeon to heal the torn palms and bind up the wounded side and lacerated feet, that He might use those hands to remove the napkin and winding-sheet, and that He might employ His feet as before.'' "His disciples believed Jesus to be dead while He was hidden in the sepulchre, whereas He was alive." ("Science and Health," pg. 44.) Hence it was as natural for Him to rise and reappear among E[is disciples, as it is for a man after three days' retirement and rest in 79 the privacy of his chamber to issue out again among his friends. Christian Science the Antithesis of Historic Christianity. Do you understand the meaning of the wordh of Mrs. Eddy! It is plain and obvious. She has flatly denied the truth upon which your Christian and Catholic faith stands and falls. Eddyism still parades before the world with the title ''Christian" — and I tell you it is the most colossal act of fraud and effrontery of the age. This moment you either sever all connections with Christian Science or call St. John, who witnessed Jesus, dead and buried, a dupe or a downright prevaricator, and the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Mary Magdalene, who came to anoint the body of the Savior with spices, as insanely hysterical women, befogged in materialism. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared and spoke with His disciples. On the way to Em-, maus he walked in their company, and in the evening He broke bread with them. He bade the doubting Thomas to insert his finger in the wounds of His hands and feet, and to place his hand in the opening of His sacred side. Why did the Savior insist upon this? To as- sure His disciple of the consoling fact of the fulfilment of the prophecy made in the Gospel 80 of St. Luke (18:33): ''And after they have scourged Him, they will put Him to death; and the third day He shall rise again.'' Christ's Tarrying upon Earth, a Campaign of Deception. We, therefore, must regard the tarrying of our dear Savior upon earth as the last act of His love, to fortify forever the principal truth upon which He based the Divinity of His mis- sion, and upon which we also rest our hopes and our soul's supreme aspiration. But Mrs. Eddy! All through His mortal life, from crib to cross, she has dogged His steps, stripping His person of every trace of divinity, imputing to Him now ignorance, now positive falsehood, — and now, even after His death and resurrec- tion, she desists not from maligning His char- acter, but continues to assail Him, designating His reappearance in the flesh as a campaign of deception for the purpose of strengthening His disciples in the belief that He possessed the selfsame body, which was stained with blood and pierced with a spear, whereas His body and its wounds were "illusions" and "mortal The Savior Merciful. Finally on Mount Olivet the heart of the Savior was touched with pity at His followers 81 groveling in error, and He determined to dis- illusion them. He, therefore, permitted His body to melt into nothingness. Thus equiva- lently Mrs. Eddy writing, ''Jesus' unchanged physical condition after what seemed to be death was followed by His exaltation above all material conditions; and this exaltation ex- plained His ascension. ' ' ( ' ' Science and Health,'' pg. 46.) The Angels Cruel. But ye men of Galilee, we pity you! Jesus on Mount Olivet tried to disengage your minds from error. But, alas, two angels appeared and plunged you back into your former lament- able condition, for they said, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up to heaven? This same Jesus shall come in like manner as you have seen Him go." The disciples be- lieved that Jesus had been clothed in flesh during His mortal life, and now they are led to believe by these messengers from on High that His selfsame body of flesh and blood still endures in the mansions of eternity. These men of Galilee descended from Mount Olivet, and departed for different parts of the world. They recorded their impressions in the Gospels, and upon these writings are based the dogmas of Christianity. 82 The Writings of Mrs. Eddy an Antithesis of the Record of the Evangelists, Tonight you have heard Mrs. Baker Eddy set forth her views regarding the Divine Sa- vior. She has flatly contradicted the testimony of the men of Galilee, taken a bold and defiant stand against historic Christianity, and ren- dered Jesus Christ a perfect Christian Sci- entist. To Whom Shall We Accord Belieff To whose voice will you hearken? To the voice of the men of Galilee sounding down the centuries — of the men, who lived and labored with the Messiah during the heat of the day and in the shade of the evening sat at His feet and learned from His own sacred lips His doc- trine divine, or to the voice of Mrs. Eddy, a woman, who, separated from Christ by a space of nineteen centuries, sat at her desk with a Bible and a heap of cheap commentaries before her, and believed herself inspired'? To whose testimony will you accord belief? To the tes- timony of men who confessed their religion before emperor and tyrant and sealed it with the blood of cruel martyrdom, or to the testi- mony of a woman who, shrewdly embodying her religion in a copyrighted book, amassed through its sale a fortune, and spent her days in luxury and ease? Upon whom will you gaze 83 as your spiritual Mother and the Oracle of truth! Upon Mother Eddy, who sank into a grave like any ordinary mortal, and who, de- spite the promise of her disciples that she would rise as a final demonstration of .the truth of her system, still lies mouldering in the grave at Mt. Auburn, or upon the Roman and Catholic and Apostolic Church, who, though she was born on the day when the Holy Ghost descended in pentecostal flames of fire, still lives without spot or wrinkle upon her counte- nance, without the gray or white of age upon her head, without flaw or error upon the record of her dogmatical and moral teachings? You Cannot Be a Christian and Christian Scien- tist. Christian Scientists Excommunicated. The hour is solemn. Your decision is of tre- mendous, nay, possibly of everlasting impor- tance. Mrs. Eddy shall no longer wear the mantle of Christianity, and no one standing beneath its folds shall be designated as Chris- tian. Now — either declare for Mrs. Baker Eddy and be excommunicated from the com- munion of this Church, before whose altar you tonight worship, or forswear Mrs. Eddy and Christian Science, and live and die — "Within this rock-built Church that wavers never. 84 Here reigns the Shepherd-King, a Father ever To him who seeks and loves the light. This priestly King shall rule till doom's dread day, Then yield the keys to Him who gave this wondrous sway." THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SCHEME OF HEALING "For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall show great signs and wonders, inasmuch, as to deceive (if possible) even the elect." Matt. 24 :24. With serious mind we have paid Mrs. Baker Eddy the compliment of having possessed a shrewd and calculating sense of business, a deeply practical understanding of the weakness and foibles of human nature, and of the method how best to turn them to her advantage and favor. She recognized with what self-effacing obeisance men will prostrate themselves before any vagary presented in the name of ^'Sci- ence/' — and to secure for her system the power of enthralling, she called it ^'Science." Quite well did she know that religion rules as one of the dominant passions in the human heart, — and to add to her system the sanction and the theological dignity of a religious cult, she called it ^^ Christian.'* Christian Science Divested of Its Masquerade Costume — A Sanitary System. But with Christian Science, inasmuch as it is presented to the world as a system of meta- 86 physics and of theology, we are done. It shall no longer engage our attention, as it is vested in its masquerade costume, and never again shall we with advertence pronounce its name save as the ^'so-called Christian Science.'' We now desire to look upon it in its nakedness. Patent medicines often, I might say, gener- ally depend for a wide sale not so much upon their merits as upon bold advertisement. Our eye is caught by some vivid description of an accident or crime, by some interesting observa- tion about religion, history, science, etc. We read on with increasing interest and only near the close do we discover that we have been reading a newspaper advertisement formally urging us to take Peruna, sure cure for coughs, colds, catarrh. We read a book entitled '^Science and Health." It is printed and bound in the shape and form of a pocket Bible; it contains scin- tillating metaphors, sophomoric effusions, and lame iambics, all melting into one confused and confusing composition, labeled ''Science." Still if the reader at its conclusion retains the use of his faculties, he cannot lay down the ''pre- cious volume" but with the conviction that the authoress of "Science and Health," in a manner much more clever than patent medicine advertisements, has made a bid to him to adopt Christian Science as a sanitary system — as a 87 panacea for every ill and hurt and pain inher- ited by the children of Adam. A sanitary system — such we judge the true nature of Christian Science to be. That we err not, Mrs. Eddy herself testifies, writing in ^'Eetrospection and Introspection,^' page 304, '^The motive of my early years has never been changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of humanity by a sanitary system." It is in the light of this definition that we shall presently consider Christian Science, so called. ^^ Science and Health" Reminds of Patent Medicine Literature. We cannot resist thinking of Lydia Pink- ham's Compound pamphlets, with the appended testimonial letters from profoundly grateful patients. For in '^ Science and Health" also there has been embodied a chapter entitled '^Fruitage," in which Mrs. Eddy presents a collection of letters "in testimony of the heal- ing efficacy of Christian Science and particu- larly of the vast number of people who have been reformed and healed through the peru- sal or study of this book." ("Science and Health," pg. 600.) Patients — Profoundly Grateful, Indeed, Yet Perhaps Over -enthusiastic. Organs of Credulity Marvelously Developed. Mrs. Eddy has identified her system with the Holy Ghost, writing, "The Science of God and man is the Holy Ghost/' ('^ Unity of Good/' pg. 52.) But I prefer to hazard a sin against the Holy Ghost (as Mrs. Eddy con- ceives him) than to accept absolutely and in- discriminately all the letters of testimony quoted by Mrs, Eddy. Some, therefore, I dis- miss unreservedly as absurd and preposterous. Their contents contradict the most palpable experience of our senses and the clearest judg- ments of our intellect. On page 605 (^'Science and Health") we find a letter introduced as ^'A Case of Mental Surgery/' in which a dis- ciple testifies that, lying in the dust with a broken arm received from a fall, he declared to himself the truth that there can be no break in the realm of Divine Love, and forthwith arose with the bone of his arm perfectly knit- ted, mounted his bicycle and rode home. I reject the testimony of this man; nor am I compelled to present an elaborate argument for my action any more than I would be held to oifer proof and reasons for refusing to believe that a man could stop the roll of the waves with a pitchfork. A statement mani- festly absurd needs no refutation. Other cases may sound surprising and as- tounding, but we reject them not. They may lie out of the realm of our own personal expe- rience; still they violate not reason, and for their truth we have the testimony and guaran- 89 tee of persons, whose character for knowledge and veracity is beyond impeachment. Finally, other cases are produced, which fall under the ken of our own personal observation, and for which we find a parallel every day. Therefore, we concede, and we do it frankly, that in the temples of Christian Science some persons have found hope and relief, perhaps even after the doctors had abandoned them as beyond the aid of their efforts, and their close relatives were mournfully calculating the fun- eral expenses. Healing Successes Not Due to Religio- ,' metaphysical Theories. £ Now, what does the fact that a few cures have been effected, argue I Do they form a physical demonstration of the truth and valid- ity of the religio-metaphysical theories of Mrs. Baker Eddy? This I flatly deny. Spiritism also, of which Mrs. Baker Eddy herself remarks, "No greater opposites can be conceived than Christian Science, Spiritism, and Theosophy,'' claims cures equally wonder- ful, or rather seemingly wonderful, and, I judge, as truthfully as Christian Science. In Utah the Mormons are said to effect cures without the administering of medicine. In every neigh- borhood periodically appears the wonder- working evangelist ; he claims to be the Mes- 90 siah, though to some he may be known to have no more conscience than a thieving tom-cat. In the deserts of Arizona over the sick Indian the medicine-man chants his weird incantations; he believes not in Christian Science, and yet missionaries inform us that his rude efforts are often attended with marvelous results. How shall we explain the cures effected by these various religious healers'? Shall we say that the devil aids them? No. To the devil too much credit is already given. Has Heaven granted them some preternatural power? No. Their character and methods preclude such a possibility. Is it in virtue of the truth of their respective theories regarding the nature of the Supreme Being and metaphysics (if by a stretch of the imagination we can associate metaphysics with a war-painted Indian) ? No. Their teachings contradict and antagonize one another, and among contradictories some are evidently false. Mind Controls Body. There must be some other fact that explains their therapeutic successes, and it is this : they all— the Utah Mormon, the itinerant evangelist, the red Indian and Mrs. Baker Eddy — have laid hold of the truth that mind can control body, and surrounded it with a mass of fan- tastic, weird and mutually contradicting terms. 91 They cure, not because their respective relig- ious teachings are true, for these are absurd and nonsensical, but because they succeed in gaining influence over the mind (whether by telling the truth or falsehood matters not), and through the mind over the body. Do we doubt this control of mind over body? Witness how friend affects friend, the joy or sorrow of one producing happiness or gloom in the other. But where find we friends more intimately connected and closely allied than the soul and the body? In the moment of concep- tion the hand of the Creator interlocks them, and through life they pass, so to speak, hand in hand. What wonder, then, that the condi- tion of one affects the disposition of the other. Is the soul enkindled with anger? Does it burn with revenge? Witness the body also affected — the eyes blaze fire, the lips grow blue and quiver, the cheek is hot and scarlet. Is the soul seized with fear? Hovers over it some calamity? Threatens it dire punish- ment? Witness the body also influenced — the face is pale and haggard, the lips tremble, the mouth is parched and dry. Finally witness the man who thinks his best efforts blighted. His eyes lose lustre. Keen disappointment gnaws away his life. But when to his surprise he beholds a change, and his 92 work blossoms forth into success, those eyes glisten again with new life and ambition and pride. Indigestion Due to Mental Attitude. These instances from daily life exemplify the control of mind over body-. Shall we marvel, then, that it can exercise the same control in the sphere of therapeutics? The most crude function in the human body is that of digestion of food, and yet J. J. Walsh, M. D., informs us that it is largely under the control of the soul. As an illustration he quotes the story of a European traveling in China. On his first day out from Hongkong he was treated to a stew of dark meat, which he relished im- mensely. Desirous of learning its name and not understanding Chinese, he pointed to the dish and very suggestively said, '^ Quack! quack!'' But the waiter negatively shook his head and added, ''Bow! wow!" It was a most unfortunate answer to a very unfortunate question. Undoubtedly the result was pain- fully unhappy. Still it illustrates that the attack of indigestion was merely consequent and due to a mental attitude. The same observation may be made of other organs in the body. Prof. Oppenheim (quoted by J. J. Walsh, M. D.) writes: "The heart rebels, as it were, against this surveillance. 93 which not only accelerates, but may even in- hibit its action and render it irregular. ^^And so it is with all the organs of the body which act spontaneously (automatically or me- chanically, like a clock) ; they get out of order and become functionally defective, if, as the result of the attention and self -observation directed towards them, impulses flow to them from the centers of consciousness and will in the same way as they flow to the organs (e. g., the muscles) which are normally under the control of the will. ^'Whenever you succeed in controlling the action of your heart by means of introspection, there flows from your brain to your heart a current of innervation which disturbs the auto- matic movement of the organ. You know whom you have to thank for the irregularity in the action of your heart. I have frequently proved this to myself in your case: if I succeeded in feeling your pulse without your becoming aware of it, holding your attention by a con- versation which interested you, the action of your heart was always absolutely regular. If, however, I tried it under your control, whilst your attention was anxiously directed to your heart, its action at once became irregular, and you experienced the very unpleasant sensation of palpitation.'^ 94 Change of Mental Attitude Produces Cure of Body. As a summary, therefore, we state: An ab- normal condition of the mind — caused by fear, disappointment, morbid introspection, worry, etc. — produces an abnormal condition of the body. Such is the nature, generally speaking, of nervous and hysterical disorders. The functions of the organs have been interfered with; and this functional derangement we call a disease. All that is necessary to cure a dis- ease of this nature is, that the abnormal condi- tion of the mind be removed. Enter the Practitioner, Bearing these facts in mind, let us now watch the Christian Scientist practitioner ex- ercise his art. ''With steady, solemn, silent step'^ he enters the sick room and approaches the patient. He impresses upon the mind of the sufferer that his sickness is an illusion; he removes the disquieting fear of symptoms; he reanimates that wavering heart with courage and resistance and hope of recovery. He con- tinues this ''treatment" until the mind is really soothed and calmed, and quite naturally he often succeeds in curing the body. Conclusion Not Warranted. Now, does this justify the Eddyite to jump up, and, his face lighted up with triumph, to 95 exclaim, '^ Behold a cure! a demonstration of the trnth of Christian Science!" Not at all. Not so fast, my man ! The attitude of the mind has been changed. Vain fears have been dis- sipated; but whether it was accomplished by telling the truth or the falsehood, is quite a different question. Use Christian Science — Prescribe Fire Engine for Cure of Headache! You and I are aware that many shrewd mothers soothe the pain of a crying infant by handing it a circular cracker with the assur- ance that it is the moon, — ^that oftentimes doc- tors cure heartache and headache by prescrib- ing sugar-pellets and telling the patients that they are taking powerful drugs. Moreover, a splitting headache may be torturing you through the hours of the night, but once your house begins to burn, and you hear the rumble of the arriving fire engines, the clanging of the bells, the hoarse shouts of the firemen, you forget your head and its ache. Will you now seriously prescribe a fire engine for the cure of a headache! The metaphysical and theological teachings of Christian Science have as much connection with the therapeutic successes it claims, as have the sugar pills, the conflagration, with the cures enumerated above. In both cases the 96 mind was influenced, and regardless of the way it was done, still a beneficial effect was pro- duced in the body. But shall we suffer ourselves to be treated like infants holding a cracker in their tiny hands and believing it to be the moon? Shall we pay the price of an expensive drug for plain water with an admixture of a little table salt*? Shall we swallow morsels of blasphemy, of absurdity? Shall we be duped and fraudu- lently deceived to obtain the benefits of mind cure? Not at all. Catholic Church Influences Mind, Beneficially Yet Not Fraudulently. I appeal to-yqu t^ — N i-.' I v^ I / u UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY *^-; \ .^