The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-10-02
HEALING BY SUGGESTION"

The Christian Scientist will laugh at
the simplicity of the man treated by the
fraud of an Oxydonor, while the Oxydonor
man smiles at the credulity of him
who is healed through belief in the false
philosophy of Christian Science, and yet
both of them are practicing or receiving
healing along identical lines-both ap-
pealing to the same psychical law of ma
ture-mental suggestion it has we'll
been said "that mental impressions, how
ever produced, act through the nervous
system upon the organs of the body to
stimulate or to obstruct their functions
Thus fear, hope, grief and cheerfulness
all register themselves in our bodily con-
ditions."
Having shown the absolute connection
between faith cures, Christian Science,
roohooism, charlatanism, and patent nos
trums and healing contrivances, it only
remains to answer few questions and to
say in conclusion some things with refer
ence to the dangers that grow out of q
belief in faith cures and Christian
Science. Some one would like to ask me
if / do not believe in prayer for the sick.
certainly do, and for the best of reasons,
list. Prayer acts upon the patient If deliv-
cred in his presence as powerful mental
stimulus-no tonic is superior to that
mental tonic of faith in God. While the
interest in the patient manifested by a
public prayer in his behalf tends to In
crease the interest of all concerned in
his recovery. But aside from this, God
is a prayer hearing and answering God,
but he answers not in the whirl-wind of
miraculous healing, but in the still small
voice of natural law. He can direct the
physicians mind to the employment of
the proper remedies, give to the nurse
the patient way and the tender touch
and impart to the patient hopeful state
of mind conducive to his recovery. Thus
in answer to our prayer and yet along
perfectly natural and ordinary lines of
healing God hears and answers our pray
ers. AS to the dangers of faith cure
there is in those who practice and teach
them a constant tendency to fanaticism.
and fanaticism is a deadly foe to chris
tianity.
Z DANGER IN CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
People who accept the doctrine of faith
cure usually join thereto a belief in the
doctrine of sinless perfection, which tends
to a denial of the ordinary teaching of
the Bible about the nature of sin, and also
makes it's adherents narrow lacking in
charity. and illiberal, all of which tends
to bring christianity the noblest, purest
and best thing in all the world, into dis
repute among reasonable and thinking
people.
) The danger in Christian Science is even
more fatal. Their philosophy, ex-
pressed in a single sentence from the
writings of Mrs. Eddy, is that ''Sin, sick
ness. disease and death is the false tes-
timony of false, material sense" That is
Mrs Eddy insists that sickness, sin and
death are not real things, but only the
imaginings of a disordered mind, and
that all that is needed to rid the world
of these dread disasters is to destroy the
belief in them. Strange philosophy, abb
surd in the extreme, contrary to all the
learning of the times, and utterly re-
pugnant to the spirit of the Bible, in that
it would represent Jesus dying-as he
did for the sins of the people-dying
only for fiction and night mare; for by