There is, however, as we have pointed out before, in every progressive race an unprogressive element which cannot assimilate the new thought nor adapt itself to the new conditions, but which somehow manages to survive and perpetuate itself. From medieval times down to the present there have always been some to believe in these miracle cures and practice them. There stretches an almost unbroken chain from the Catholic saints and English kings to Mrs. Mary M. Baker Glover Patterson Eddy and her disciples.

In 1662 a certain Irish Protestant, Valentine Greatrakes was convinced that he possessed the gift of healing the King's evil, and for a number of years devoted three days in every week to the exercise of his gift, which he looked upon as a gift of God.

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Concerning his works the Bishop of Dromore testified as follows from personal knowledge. "I have seen pains strangely fly before his hands till he had chased them out of the body; dimness cleared, and deafness cured by his touch. Twenty persons at several times, in fits of the falling sickness, were in two or three minutes brought to themselves. . . Running sores of the King's evil" were dried up; grievous sores of many months date in a few days healed, cancerous knots dissolved," etc.1 Limiting himself at first to the cure of scrofula, he little by little extended his practice until finally he undertook to cure all diseases, and met with great

success.

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In 1727, at Klosterle in Bohemia, a certain Roman Catholic priest, Joseph Gassner, began his faith-healing works and was so successful that tents had to be pitched for the accommodation of the great crowds which flocked to him from Swabia, Tyrol, and even Switzerland. He continued his cures until the arrival of the famous Mesmer who attributed them to what he called animal magnetism' and not to divine intervention.2

Another Roman Catholic faith-healer of the early nineteenth century was Prince Alexander of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfurst, Archbishop and Grand Provost of Grosswardein, Hungary; Abbot of St. Michael's, and titular Bishop of Sardica. "The imposing names and titles of this aristocratic personage, " writes Dr. Tuke, "probably had

1 Feilding: loc. cit., p. 41. 2 Feilding: loc cit., pp. 43.

much to do with his influence.''1 According to the testimony of the ex-King of Bavaria, who was himself partially cured of deafness by the princely healer, the latter by a few short prayers, and by invocation of the name of Jesus caused the deaf to hear, the blind to see, and the lame to walk. Among those cured were people of both sexes, all ages, and classes, from the humblest to a prince of the blood.'

Another eye-witness, Professor Onymus, of the University of Würzburg, tells us of a man of seventy who was cured in a few days, of paralysis of many years standing, also of a man of fifty with "arms and legs utterly paralyzed and face of a corpse-like pallor," who on the prayer of the Prince "was instantly cured, rose to his feet and walked perfectly. A student who 66 had lost for two years the use of his legs, and was perfectly cured, is another case cited by the Professor.2

Mention should be made here of the Mormon sect whose half-mystic, half-impostor founder, Joseph Smith, claimed the gift of healing as well as prophecy and interpretation of tongues, and the same claim was made by his successor, Brigham Young, and other Latter Day Saints. One of the articles of the Mormon faith reads: "We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues," etc. etc. Another queer sect, founded in 1831 by Edward Irving and known as the Irvingites, ' claimed the possession of similar gifts.

From the above it will be seen that that religious curiosity egregiously misnamed Christian Science, which has grown with wonderful rapidity in recent years, is by no means a modern product, nor a Minerva-like creature of Mrs. Mary M. Baker Glover Patterson Eddy's brain, as she would have us infer from a passage on page one, of her Science and Health, with Key to the Scriptures. Neither was it an original discovery of Dr.' P. P. Quimby, a famous healer who cured her of her chronic diseases and taught her his doctrines, and who died in 1865, one year before his pupil announced her discovery' without acknowledging her indebtnedness to him.

6

Of Christian Science and its to all, little need be said here.

doctrines, which are familiar There is no doubt that very

1 The Influence of the Mind upon the Body, in Feilding, op. cit., p. 44.

2 Feilding: op. cit., pp. 45.47.

many cures have been wrought by its disciples, but all such cures may be explained as Dr.' Newton explained the cures of his pupil and rival Dr.' Bryant. When Dr. J. M. Buckley, speaking to Newton, mentioned Bryant, the former "instantly denounced (Bryant) as an unmitigated fraud, who had no genuine healing power.

Dr. Buckley asked, "if Bryant be an unmitigated fraud, how do you account for his cures?" "Oh! they are caused by the faith of the people," replied Newton, "and the concentration of their minds upon his operations, with the expectation of being cured. None would go to see Bryant unless they had some faith that he might cure them, and when he begins his operations with great positiveness of manner, and they see the crutches he has, and hear the people testify that they have been cured, it produces a tremendous influence upon them; and then he gets them started in the way of exercising, and they do a great many things they thought they could not do; their appetites and spirits revive, and if toning them up can possibly reduce the diseased tendency, many of them will get well."

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Doctor, pardon me," said Dr. Buckley, "is not that a correct account of the manner in which you perform your wonderful works?" Oh no, was the reply, "the difference between a genuine healer and a quack like Bryant is as wide as the poles.

The great rock on which Eddyism and its allied cults, both ancient and modern, have grounded is Bibliolatry, and literal interpretation, with which we have already dealt. Every word of the Bible is interpreted literally, and often arbitrarily when there is need of harmonizing it with the Scientist's' crude and peculiar metaphysics. Many Scriptural passages, when taken literally and isolated from their context have, if not directly caused such religious aberrations, at least reinforced them, and rendered their struggle for survival much lighter. Thus Mrs. Eddy writes in her book, which is amazingly full of contradictions and absurd statements, that, "Man is not matter, made up of brains, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man was made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The reflection of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect. Man is the

1A. Feilding: Faith Healing and Christian Science, pp. 58-59.

idea of Divine Principle, not physique. He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas. Man is incapable of sin, sickness and death, inasmuch as he derives his essence from God, and possesses not a single original, or underived power. Hence the real man cannot depart from holiness. Nor can God, by whom man was evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man, for the offspring of God cannot be evil. Mortals are men's counterfeits. They are the children of the Wicked One, or the one evil, which declares that man begins as a material embryo."1 Again, I have found nothing in ancient or modern systems on which to found my own, except the teachings and demonstrations of our great Master, and the lives of the prophets and apostles." "

2

This severe literalism is further brought out vividly and amusingly in Mr. Hazzard's Prayer for a Dyspeptic,' which also shows how large a rôle repetition and suggestion play in these cures. "Holy Reality! We Believe in Thee that Thou art Everywhere present. We really believe it. Blessed Reality, we do not pretend to believe, think we believe, believe that we believe. We believe. Believing that Thou art everywhere present, we believe that Thou art in this patient's stomach, in every fibre, in every cell, in every atom, that Thou art the sole, only reality of that stomach. Heavenly, Holy Reality, we will try not to be such hypocrites and infidels, as every day of our lives to affirm our faith in Thee and then immediately begin to tell how sick we are, forgetting that Thou art everything and that Thou art not sick, and therefore that nothing in this universe was ever sick, is now sick, or can be sick. Forgive us our sins in that we have this day talked about our backaches, and that we have told our neighbors that our food hurts us, that we mentioned to a visitor that there was a lump in our stomach, that we have wasted our valuable time which should have been spent in thy service, in worrying for fear that our stomach would grow worse, in that we have disobeyed Thy blessed law in thinking that some kind of medicine would help us. We know, Father and Mother of us all, that there is no such thing as a really diseased stomach; that the disease is the Carnal Mortal Mind given over to the World, the Flesh, and

1Science and Health, etc., pp. 471-2. Quoted by Feilding, op. cit., p. 76. 2Science and Health, p. 20.

the Devil; that the mortal mind is a twist, a distortion, a false attitude, the Harmatia of Thought. Shining and glorious Verity, we recognize the great and splendid Fact that the moment we really believe the Truth, Disease ceases to trouble us; that the Truth is that there is no Disease in either real Body or Mind; that in the Mind what seems to be a disease is a False Belief, a parasite, a hateful Excresence, and that what happens in the Body is the shadow of the Lie in the Soul. Lord, help us to believe that All Evil is Utterly Unreal; that it is silly to be sick, absurd to be ailing, wicked to be wailing, atheism and denial of God to say, 'I am sick.' Help us to stoutly affirm with our hand in your hand, with our eyes fixed on Thee, that we have no Dyspepsia, that we never had Dyspepsia, that we will never have Dyspepsia, that there is no such thing, that there never was any such thing, that there never will be any such thing, Amen.''1

Is this religious pathology or mere quackery? It were certainly unphilosophical to make a sweeping statement; there are undoubtedly many sincere though deluded Scientists,' but in the majority of cases we have no hesitancy in saying that there is a mixture of both religious pathology and quackery with the latter element predominating. Christian Science serves a useful purpose in bringing about some sort of mental stability in the minds of neurotic and hysterical individuals, chiefly women, who could not by any other means be effectively cured. But when it unqualifiedly condemns all modern medical science and art it becomes a public danger, and we cannot but approve the strenuous efforts of the medical faculty to have proper laws passed against it.

In our scientific age Christian Science, Mormonism, Doweism, Spiritualism, and the thousand and one other isms' are as much anomalies and aberrations, and as atavistic and degenerate as were the many strange beliefs and dogmas which we have briefly reviewed, in their own day. Just as we have seen there are in every age hyperconservative individuals who are the enemies of progress, because they cannot without difficulty adapt themselves to the new conditions, so, too, are there fickle, nervous, erratic individuals who seize greedily on anything novel, vague, and mysterious, and with a fervor which does more credit to their credulity than their

1 Quoted by Feilding: op. cit., Appendix A.