A DEFENSE OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE.
To the Editor: You informed me in my recent interview with you that discussions of a religious nature did not come within the scope of the purpose of your magazine. I am convinced by your fair, frank and kindly manner that you are unaware of the injustice done a large class of thinking people and many readers of your magazine by the article in question between us written by Professor Jastrow and published in the September number of the Popular Science Monthly. Nevertheless a great injustice has been done in that you have, even inadvertently, allowed a religious movement to be attacked through the press, while the rules of your publication allow no redress. This seems neither in consonance with justice, free speech nor a free press; and now accepting the situation as no motive or act of yours, and inasmuch as you must refuse to publish an article defending Christian Science, unless the said article be written wholly from a scientific viewpoint, excluding scriptural basis and argument; and inasmuch as Christian Science is not merely a philosophy but a science, having for its principle God, for its textbook the Scriptures and for its proof the moral, spiritual and physical betterment of thousands of its adherents; and inasmuch as the philosophy, works and phenomena of Christian Science can only be discussed or understood from a Christianly scientific standpoint based on the Scriptures, and not from the standpoint of so-called material science or from any hypothesis of a universe without a creator, who is omniscience (all science), and who, therefore, governs His creation with spiritually scientific, not material, law; and inasmuch as that compilation which our race and nation call the Bible, and believe to be a revelation from God as well as ancient history; inasmuch as this book with its key alone unlocks and reveals the consistent beauty, grandeur, might and majesty of spiritual law or science which the world cannot see, does not understand, and the 'wise' call foolish and inconsistent.—Considering all these points and conceding them—because you cannot deny from an opposite premise what I find true—and now, my dear sir, I will ask you to publish this, my letter to you, and a few remarks on Professor Jastrow's article, 'The Occult.'
To begin with, let it be understood that in very fact Professor Jastrow did not attack Christian Science at all. He thought he did, and was no doubt perfectly honest in decrying a thing so occult and wrong as what he believed Christian Science to be; and were it such a thing I would join issue with our critic against it—but behold the fact: Christian Science is as far above what Professor Jastrow attacked in the 'occult' as the science of astronomy is above 'tiddledewinks.'
Professor Jastrow says: "Logic is the language of science. Christian Science and what sane men call science cannot communicate, because they do not speak the same language." Here the Professor, a material scientist, confesses profound ignorance of our spiritual premises, yet sits in judgment oh mentally scientific and metaphysical statements in Science and Health, vilifies the science and calls its votaries insane. Such a position makes our critic's logic lame. Surely, Professor Jastrow must be cognizant of the fact that very many, as erudite as he, swell the ever-increasing ranks of scientific
