764 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



would consider his treatment effectual if lie were in New York and 

 his patient were in Hong Kong. 



I have rheumatism, let us say, and at midnight my swollen 

 and inflamed joint gives me pain. I send for a Christian-Science 

 healer. In all probability my messenger will call upon a person 

 who has had no preliminary medical education whatever. He is 

 likely to find some one who is quite illiterate, as witness the letter 

 last presented. He may, as I have, come upon some one who has 

 been engaged in the occupation of amusing the habitues of beer 

 saloons by playing upon the zither before he took up the more 

 remunerative business of Christian-Science healing. Or he may, 

 as I have, come upon some one who is engaged simultaneously both 

 in the business of selling drugs and in the practice of healing by 

 mental therapeutics alone. 



Having been found, the healer, first requiring a fee from my 

 messenger, treats me " absently," while lying abed in his own home. 

 His treatment consists in sending me word that I only imagine I 

 am ill, that my joint is really not swollen, that it is really not in- 

 flamed, and that it really does not pain me, but that, on the con- 

 trary, I am really very well and very happy indeed. 



Some diseases are in Christian Science considered to take longer 

 to heal than others; I have not understood why. If " all is mind, 

 and there is no matter," * as the Christian Scientist holds, and if, 

 therefore, the varying densities of tissues need not be considered, 

 why should not cancer or locomotor ataxia be healed as easily and 

 as rapidly as a headache or a hysterical manifestation? Christian 

 Science despises bodily cleanliness, the use of baths, and the most 

 ordinary sanitary regulations. " To bow down to a flesh-brush, 

 bath, diet, exercise, and air is a form of idolatry." f We learn, 

 finally, that " the heart, the lungs, the brain, have nothing to do 

 with life." $ 



Christian Science has stood by the bedside of an infant sick 

 with diphtheria, has prevented interference with its incantations, 

 and has seen this infant choke, grow livid, gasp, and expire, with- 

 out so much as putting a drop of water to its lips. 



Most Christian Scientists are well to do. Their tenet is that 

 " no one has any business to be poor." In New York their 

 churches are in the neighborhood of the wealthy, and there are 

 no missions by means of which the professed blessings of Christian 

 Science may be disseminated among the poor. Christian Science 

 is demonstrably a powerful organization for the accumulation of 

 wealth, and by easy calculation one may see that her propaganda 

 has made Mrs. Eddy, who is said to have been at one time very 



* Science and Health. f Ibid. $ Ibid. 



