|Let us now investigate some of the other teachings of Mrs. Eddy,
which are at present more or less kept in the background, or which are
presented only to those who have become adepts or advanced students of
the cult. A careful perusal of Mrs. Eddy's miscellaneous literature will
show that she practically denies sex, marriage, birth, death, the
home, the family, as well as education and morality. It seems a serious
accusation to bring against any one posing as a reformer or as the
founder of a religion, but the evidence warrants the charge. Has no one
ever observed that Christian Science journals do not announce marriages,
births, or deaths? Of course, like other people, Christian Scientists
are born, marry, and die; but no official recognition of such events is
permitted. There must be a reason for it. In Christian Science there
is no room for sex relations and for children, even as there is no
recognition of that other natural phenomenon, death. But do not Mrs.
Eddy's disciples die? Is not her body buried in a cemetery, and marked
by a monument raised over her remains by her admirers?
The explanation for this apparent contradiction between the profession
and the practice, from the Christian Science point of view, is as
follows: Every believer in Mrs. Eddy's revelation is expected
to demonstrate over death as over sickness; and just as, when a
practitioner fails to demonstrate over sickness, it is because of some
error or belief somewhere, and not because of the insufficiency of
Divine power, likewise, if a Christian Scientist dies, it is because he
has not applied the new doctrine rightly, and not because the doctrine
is not strong enough to prevent death. This teaching really makes of
death not a beneficent economy of nature, but a crime, or a miscarriage,
as it were, of Christian Science.
In the State of Michigan there is a religious sect called "the House of
David." One of their doctrines is that a Christian cannot die. "But," I
asked the man whom I was interviewing in Michigan, "do not the members
of your sect die like other people?" His answer was that they die only
when they fall from grace.
In the same way, if a Christian Scientist dies, it is because he has
departed from the truth as taught by Mrs. Eddy, or because some one has
killed him mentally by "malicious animal magnetism" or "mortal mind."
That was how, Mrs. Eddy asserts, her husband was assassinated. If
one member of a family is a Christian Scientist and the treatment he
receives from a practitioner does not cure him of the complaint, the
blame is liable to be thrown upon the non-Christian Science members of
the family, who, by resisting the operations of "Divine" power, prevent
its manifestation. It is witchcraft come back. Could anything be more
inhuman than to hold an unbelieving parent responsible for the failure
of Christian Science to save his child from an attack of typhus or
scarlet fever after the practitioner has deprived the patient of the
services of medical care and treatment? But can a "Divine" healer
admit failure? Rather than confess defeat, he will accuse the nearest
relatives of the patient of malpractice. I am sorry to conclude that at
times Christian Science is as cowardly as it is cruel.
"Suffer it to Be So Now"
|According to Mrs. Eddy, marriage, like death, suggests materiality, and
is therefore an error. The words of Jesus, that in heaven they shall be
like the angels who do not marry nor are given in marriage, are quoted
to prove that sex is an illusion of mortal mind. Of course, the Eddyites
marry, but only for the same reason that they die--because they are not
sufficiently advanced in Christian Science to demonstrate over these
errors.
In the _Christian Science Sentinel_, June 16, 1906, and in the
_Christian Science Journal_, July, 1906, Mrs. Eddy calls marriage
"legalized lust"--this from a woman who had been three or four times
married!
"Suffer it to be so now" is the text quoted by Christian Scientists
to defend their inconsistency. But how long a time does the word "now"
cover? Jesus, in using the word "now," must have meant his own day,
which was nearly two thousand years ago. But is it still "now"? A "now"
that lasts so long might just as well mean "indefinitely."
"Suffer it to be so _indefinitely_" would be the real meaning of the
text as the Eddyites interpret it. Accordingly, when the Christian
Science dispensation shall be in full swing, marriage, birth, children,
the family, as also sickness and death, will be no more. That will be, I
suppose, when it is no longer "now."
I have already quoted Mrs. Eddy's belief in regard to sex: "Gender is
also a quality characteristic of mind, and not of matter." She will wink
at marriages "until it is learned that generation [birth] rests on no
sexual basis." I do not know what kind of reasoning led her to say:
"To abolish marriage and maintain generation is possible in Christian
Science." Are not such foolish as well as mischievous doctrines a menace
to the community? Can a man, can a woman, believe in such absurdities
without becoming unbalanced mentally sooner or later?