Читать книгу Medicine and the Church. Being a series of studies on the relationship between the practice of medicine and the church's ministry to the sick онлайн

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‘Every false system of philosophy, of ethics, of morals, and of religion is floated on the vast ocean of conduct, of character, and of conviction by some element of truth. This corresponds to a water-tight compartment in a vessel which is in danger of being sunk, through dishonest contracts, imperfect mechanism, ignorant seamanship, or the stress and strain of storm. But for this compartment, the ship would disappear in the gurgling green of the ocean. In the moral Order, and in all our controversies, there is this unsinkable truth. It keeps afloat all with which it is for the time united, until the balance is lost. Then the system is submerged. But the truth sails on.’5 In the case of the system we have had under examination this truth is the power of the mind over the body and the efficacy of faith. Christian Science undoubtedly cures certain kinds of neurotic troubles, just as it may do incalculable harm by teaching that scientific medicine is not only useless but mischievous. If its followers confined themselves to merely enunciating the truth on which the flimsy superstructure is founded little could be urged against them. As we have seen, however, by a careful examination of their official records, they contradict the cardinal doctrines of the Christian Churches, and encourage a disregard for all bodily complaints that is not merely foolish in the extreme, but where the sufferings of others are concerned, distinctly brutal, and in either case often leads to the most disastrous results.