|Christian Science, instead of being either scientific or Christian,
comes very near being, and in fact is, a sort of get-well-quick system,
suggestive of the get-rich-quick scheme of the speculating fraternity.
The gambler does not have to learn a trade or to build up a business
in order to secure a footing in the commercial world, or to establish
a reputation for honesty and efficiency. He does not depend upon these
things for a living, since the throw of a dice, the colour of a card, or
a lucky bet may bring to him in a few minutes more than patient work
can offer in years. The Christian Science practitioner likewise does
not have to study the human body, the properties of drugs, the nature of
anæsthetics or of antiseptics, the germ theory of disease, the effect of
diet and climate upon the human organism, the causes of epidemics, the
means of control of contagious maladies--nothing at all of this. A few
lessons in metaphysics, a copy of Mrs. Eddy's book, and a number
of texts on the tip of his tongue, and he may begin practising and
collecting fees from patients.
Should a call come to the Christian Science healer in the middle of a
cold, wintry night, he need not even rise out of bed, much less walk or
ride through the storm to see and examine his patient; and if he should
fall asleep while giving absent treatment, who would be the wiser for
it?
There is yet another close resemblance between the get-rich-quick and
the get-well-quick systems. What makes gambling attractive is the wealth
there is in the world. If labour did not create wealth, there would be
nothing to gamble with or to gamble for. The gambler is a parasite. He
thrives on the labour of others. In the same way, the get-well-quick
practitioner profits from the conquests of material science. If the
Eddyites really desired to give a demonstration of their "science," they
should go to those Asiatic countries where sanitary measures are unknown
where there are no facilities for the proper ventilation of dwellings or
for personal cleanliness; where the waters are impure, the streets
are foul, the food insufficient, the climate merciless; where modern
hygienic precautions are unknown; where the cholera, the black death, or
some other plague works unhindered, and where there are no physicians
to be sent for at the last hour. Let them, I say, work in such an
environment to show what Christian Science can do. But to operate in
Europe and America--where science, like a watch dog, is guarding the
health of the people, inventing a thousand devices for the comfort and
security of life, hurrying to the aid of the injured almost with the
alacrity of thought, building hospitals equipped with all the weapons
which disease dreads, and training men and women to march at any moment
in full phalanx and armed to the teeth against the first plague germ
that lands on our shores from foreign lands--is nothing to boast of.
Indeed, it is the progress of the physical sciences which has made the
Christian Scientist's profession profitable. "Divine healers" eat of the
golden fruits of the tree of science, and then turn round and stone the
tree.