EDITOR'S TABLE. 



555 



cheerful and enthusiastic mendacity, 

 inform you that you haven't any 

 pain, that you haven't any boils, that 

 you haven't any rheumatism or 

 sciatica, or whatever it may be ; and 

 if you should point ruefully to the 

 affected part, will exclaim: "Why, 

 that .isn't you; that's a mere mass 

 of matter soulless matter and you 

 are a soul, a spirit. You ought to 

 rule your matter and not let your 

 matter rule you." This is a point in 

 the proceedings at which the faith of 

 the sufferer is sometimes severely 

 tried. Cases have been known in 

 which, breaking into language nei- 

 ther wholly Christian nor rigorously 

 scientific, the patient has demanded 

 to know why, if that wasn't him 

 even grammar may be sacrificed in 

 these emergencies he should be en- 

 during such abominable tortures on 

 account of it ; and up to date the 

 satisfactory answer of Christian sci- 

 ence to that particular question has 

 not been formulated. 



Give people a fad, however, that 

 they thoroughly enjoy and they will 

 make great sacrifices for it, looking 

 pleasant under circumstances which 

 would test the good humor even of a 

 Mark Tapley. Here is where the 

 Christian scientists may sometimes 

 score; for good spirits are certainly 

 both a prophylactic and a remedial 

 agency of no mean value in various 

 physical troubles. This is the one 

 grain of truth in their bushel of non- 

 sense. On the other hand, they do 

 widespread and serious moral mis- 

 chief by promoting the bad habit of 

 ignoring facts. We have heard of 

 the case of a Christian -science prac- 

 titioner who, called in to see a child 

 whose head was covered with a her- 

 petic eruption, declared, while look- 

 ing steadily at the head, that she 

 could not see any eruption. A little 

 girl who by accident had cut her 

 hand at school somewhat objected to 

 having it bound up by the teacher, 



giving as her reason that her parents 

 were "Christian science." It cer- 

 tainly is lamentable that, in addition 

 to all the other influences which tend 

 to weaken the sense for truth and 

 fact, there should have sprung up 

 a so-called religious society which 

 places a willful blindness to fact at 

 the foundation of its creed and prac- 

 tice. Surely that kind of thing does 

 not need encouragement or cultiva- 

 tion. 



Meantime, Wisdom is crying 

 aloud. Science has revealed itself 

 as the helper and guide of mankind, 

 and, in reply to all questioning of 

 its claims, points to the works it has 

 wrought. " They are they," it may 

 say, "which testify of me." The es- 

 sential and peculiar mark of science 

 is that it ignores no fact. "Hold 

 thou the fact ! " might be taken for 

 its motto. It holds the fact, it 

 wrestles with it till it yields a bless- 

 ing. The individual scientific think- 

 er, honest though he be, may ignore 

 a fact, may turn aside from evidence 

 that ought to command his atten- 

 tion; but, in so far as he does this, 

 he is unfaithful to the mandate of 

 Science. The fact, however, abides: 

 and Science, through some other of 

 her servants, or perhaps later through 

 this very one, will take it up and 

 make it yield its meaning. Science 

 has all truth for its domain, and for 

 that reason there can be but one 

 science. To apply to science such 

 an epithet as "Christian" involves 

 a total misunderstanding of what 

 science is. Science can do no more 

 than investigate all truth, nor can 

 it, consistently with its essential na- 

 ture, do less. 



In the matter, however, of reliev- 

 ing human suffering and prolonging 

 human life, what is the record? The 

 record is that since science obtained 

 a secure footing in the world it has 

 been steadily making better condi- 

 tions of life for mankind ; that it has 



