|It is urged, however, that Mrs. Eddy's teachings have been demonstrated
to be true by the remarkable cures they have effected. I need not
question these cures. I hope all of them are genuine. I love humanity
too well to wish that its ills were not cured at all rather than that
they should be cured by Christian Science. But when every claim is
conceded, all that will be proved is that Christian Science has cured
some sick people. Of course it has. I hope the Christian Scientists will
be equally generous to admit that during the past thousands of years
cures have been effected also by other agencies. Mohammedanism has
cured the sick; Catholic saints have cured the sick; holy places have
performed cures--else why do multitudes go on pilgrimages to shrines?
Patent medicines have helped the sick, otherwise the inventors and
vendors of them could not have made such big fortunes; and the
least tolerant Christian Scientist must admit that even physicians
occasionally succeed in curing the sick. Evidently, then, Mrs. Eddy is
not the _only_ healer; which, if admitted, will prove that she has
not performed any cures with her "ism" which others have not performed
without it. If it be said that other cures are cures only in name, the
same is said by unbelievers of Christian Science cures. One objection
balances the other. Christian Science would be unique if it never failed
to cure. But as it fails in some cases from one cause or another, and as
it limits its practice to complaints which do not require a knowledge
of surgery, and, again, _as it has never accomplished what the other
agencies have failed to accomplish_--restoring a lost limb, for
instance--it follows without the possibility of contradiction that it is
at its best no more than any other human agency.
At a Sunday morning meeting in San Francisco, as the audience was
leaving, a cripple in her invalid's chair was being wheeled out of
the building. Stepping up to one of the ushers who seemed to possess
considerable authority, I asked why the cripple had been brought to
the Christian Science meeting. "To be healed, of course," was the
unhesitating reply. But as she was being wheeled out in the same
condition as she was in when wheeled into the meeting, would it not
follow, I asked, that she was not cured? Had the occasion permitted, the
Christian Science usher would have argued that one or two treatments are
not always enough to effect a cure. Admitted. But if "Divine" science
must have more than one chance to hit the mark, how does it differ from
human science? To prove its Divine origin, Christian Science must meet
the following conditions: First, it must cure diseases which all other
agencies have pronounced incurable; second, it must never fail to cure;
third, it must prove itself the only power that can cure. Not one of
these conditions has been met by Christian Science. It has failed to
cure many; it has not cured the incurables; and other agencies have
cured at least as many patients as has Christian Science. In what
respect, then, is Mrs. Eddy's doctrine the absolute or the only truth?