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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Opening Mrs. Eddy’s handbook at random we come across these two explanatory statements:

(1) It is not scientific to examine the body in order to ascertain if we are in health.

(2) To employ drugs for the cure of disease shows a lack of faith in God.

There is nothing new, of course, in these two statements, nor anything peculiar to Christian Science in them. They are put forward by the majority of persons with these views, whether they belong to the Peculiar People or to Christian Science.

With Christian Science, as with all these unorthodox and irregular religious healing societies, it is almost impossible to find any matter that is sufficiently definite to enable one to form any conclusion of their objects. They talk glibly about having effected cures of various kinds of diseases, but on their own showing there is absolutely no evidence to prove that the individual ever had that disease or any other form of disease. Mr. Stephen Paget has very kindly allowed me to make one or two extracts from his invaluable work dealing with Christian Science. He has, at great pains, collected cases of Christian Science cures as reported in their own official publications. It is only necessary to read a few of these to see the absolute hopelessness of getting at the bottom of them, not merely from a medical standpoint but from the point of view of common sense. I would ask any person of average intelligence to read the following five testimonies to healing that Mr. Stephen Paget extracted from Mrs. Eddy’s weekly journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and inform me if they convey any impression whatsoever to his or her mind: