Christian Science and Cruel Superstition

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jun 13, 1907

Christian Science and Cruel Superstition

THE following paragraphs we clip from the Home Herald, of Chicago, that our readers may see the fruit of that belief miscalled “Christian Science:”—

“John R. M., the four-months-old child of Mr. and Mrs. James W. M., of —— street, died yesterday morning about eleven o’clock, and a physician, who had been called too late, refused to give a death certificate.”

The above paragraph appeared in an Eastern newspaper a few days ago. The father stated that lack of faith was responsible. The physician was irreligious enough to refuse the certificate, because he had not been called to see the child twenty-four hours prior to its death, the period required by law.

To a reporter the father made the following confession: “I believe that healing is the work of the Lord, not of man, because the Scriptures teach us so.” “What did you do to relieve the child’s pain?” he was asked. “We prayed, fed it, and gave it water.”

This in Christian America! Indorsed by a Christian elder, and perpetrated by a Christian father! It is strange that the purest types of faith are thus perverted, and that parental love must be strangled thus in the name of Jesus Christ. We dare not believe that mysticism is an ailment of the church today; far otherwise. In such instances, however, a bit of skepticism would be a work of grace.

And yet we can hardly agree that skepticism is necessary even in so aggravated a case of cruel superstition as this. A heart of pity and a little common sense ought to be a sufficient antidote, to say nothing of the love of Christ in the heart and a due sense of parental responsibility.