Page:Faithhealingchri00buckiala.djvu/297

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"CHRISTIAN SCIENCE" AND "MIND CURE"
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her predictions have not been fulfilled, the patient dying in excruciating agony. Instances which have occurred, and can be reproduced at any time, of the attempted absent treatment of persons who never existed, are numerous; for there is not one of this class of healers that cannot be so imposed upon. This is sufficient to raise a powerful presumption that the spiritual presence which they evoke, and to which they speak, is "such stuff as dreams are made of."

It is not to be denied that they make more cures than any bungler or extremist of a school using drugs would expect. But their failures are numerous, and, like faith healers, they never publish these. Compelled, however, to admit this, the chancellor of the University of the Science of Spirit says:

Our inability to heal instantaneously as they (Jesus and the Apostles) are recorded to have done, is attributable to our deficiency in the realization of the doctrine. While we claim that our theory of healing is applicable to all diseases, we do not claim to possess sufficient understanding in it at the present time to heal all diseases instantaneously, neither would we now guarantee to cure certain diseases, such as cancer or consumption in the last stages. Of one thing, however, we are confident, i. e., that we can do more good in all cases of illness than can be done with any other theory, or with materia medica.—Arens.

They are rather more successful than faith healers for this reason: with the faith healers it is generally either an instantaneous cure, or none at all. And an instantaneous cure cannot be made to apply to a great many cases, and what is supposed to be such is very frequently a delusion followed by a complete relapse. The Christian Scientists, however, and their congeners make many visits and give nature a much better opportunity without the destruction of the patient's faith in them by a failure at a critical juncture; thus