CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 765 



poor, conspicuously rich even in these days of enormous fortunes. 

 When we consider that this woman claims to be actuated by the 

 spirit of the poor Nazarene, has hypocrisy ever gone to greater 

 length? 



Mrs. Eddy despises all metaphysical systems, yet her writings 

 display her inability to think logically through half a dozen con- 

 secutive lines. 



Mrs. Eddy declares that " no human being or agency taught 

 me the truths of Christian Science, and no human agency can over- 

 throw it." * But there are published statements,! of the truth 

 of which the writer offers to give legal proof, in which it is shown, 

 by means of the " deadly parallel," that the essential ideas under- 

 lying her system are all plagiarized from the writings of an irregu- 

 lar practitioner to whom, many years ago, she went for treatment. 

 Published accounts of her illness at that time present a picture of 

 hysteria pure and simple. 



Mrs. Eddy claims to possess healing powers nothing short of 

 miraculous, yet the writer just mentioned declares that she has 

 probably not been a well woman these forty years past. Certain 

 it is she almost never appears in public, and only a few of her fol- 

 lowers have ever seen her face except in copyrighted photographs. 



The medical profession is most stupidly reprobated by Mrs. 

 Eddy and her associates, especially for its "mercenary motives." 

 A specific statement may here be not malapropos. In the 

 year 1895 there were 1,800,000 inhabitants in the lesser city of 

 New York, and on the rolls of its hospitals and dispensaries were 

 more than 793,000 names of people for the treatment of whom 

 New York's medical men received practically no pecuniary reward 

 whatever. 



It is declared that Christian Science is a religious system, that 

 the treatment of the sick is a part of this system, and that, as the 

 Constitution forbids interference by the States with religion, no 

 laws can be enacted which could compel the healer to desist from 

 his work. But there is a sharp distinction between religious liberty 

 and license to commit, in the name of religion, unlawful acts. A 

 man would not be justified in killing his child in obedience to a 

 fanatical belief, as Abraham was about to do; but Christian Science 

 has sacrificed the lives of little children upon the altar of its pseudo- 

 religion. Had not these children rights which ought to have been 

 safeguarded? If the Christian Scientist's position be admitted, 

 a 'thug might, upon the same principles, be justified in committing 

 murder, on the ground that murder is a practice required by his 

 religion; and a Mormon might, on the same basis, practice polyg- 



* Science and Health. f The Arena, May, 1898. 



