SelfDeception Who leads Israel's army in paths Jesus trod, The fact is that every one is subject to self-deception. Christian Scientists are not exempt from this incident of human experience. They have often persuaded themselves that certain results were brought about mentally when other causes were at work effecting the end so much desired. They delude themselves into imagining that actual facts bear out their theories, when in reality they prove just the opposite. Mr. Norton once testified before a committee of the New York Legislature that a severed artery could be reunited by mental treatment alone. When asked what he would do when a person cut an artery, he answered: "This bleeding to death only exists in your mind. If I cut my hand I would put a piece of plaster on it to prevent the dirt from getting in, and then would use my mind to stop inflammation or poisoning.” He described the case of a boy who had been under water for fifteen minutes and was laid on the dock apparently dead. Mr. Norton gave him mental treatment for half an hour. At the end of that time the boy came to life and began to throw the water off his stomach without the use of any rolling or other manipulation usually employed in such accidents. What assurance has any observer that it was the Norton mind that recovered the boy? Nature without metaphysics may have been the instrument. This man testified that he had cured cows, and could treat dogs, horses and plants successfully. One of his ilk declared that she had caused a rubber plant that was drooping and likely to die to be revived by her mental processes. It was in this way: In a case before a New York surrogate a lady gave testimony that a plant in the house was observed to be drooping. A few days afterward it was remarked by a member of the family that the plant looked much better and seemed to have revived. "Yes," said a Christian Scientist living in the house, "I have been treating it by Christian Science." The witness hesitated, while a suppressed smile broke out. On being asked its meaning she replied: "Oh, nothing," with a shy glance at the court, "only I had been watering it more regularly." Is not the whole subject of absent treatment mentally administered a delusion and a snare? We have seen that patients have been called up to the mind, on the presentation of a lock of hair to the Mind Healer, and supposed cures undertaken. The fact was that the lock of hair belonged to the dead. If a practitioner is not able to distinguish between the living and the dead in giving absent treatment, how can he ever be sure that his mind is focused on any particular individual? How then may any given cure under such circumstances ever be effected? Is not the whole theory absurd, and simply the shadowy creation of the imagination? There is a side of this whole question fraught with graver danger. While we may not expect the pure A Grave minded and noble members of this sect to be corrupted by its metaphysical delusions and contradictions, how about the weak and the criminal of humanity? if evil, crime, and sin are all illusions and dreams, great classes of men and women may come to say: "All is God, all is Good. It matters not what we mortals do. Evil is not real, but only a bad dream." Then right will be confounded with wrong. Law will have no force of authority. Then the dream of license, pleasure and sensuality-for there is no evil-will entangle the feet of the race in lurid and fantastic mazes. When these doctrines are carried to their legitimate consequences what becomes of government, personal rights, and all social order? CHAPTER XII. THE MASK WITHDRAWN. What must be the practical outcome of a religion of The Awaking dreams that puts the mask of delusion over the face of reality? After the mask is withdrawn, the falsehood and wickedness engendered by a wrong philosophy and by denying the facts of experience are revealed in the shock of reality. What bitterness, hatred, and despair overwhelm the deluded soul! Faith in Christ as a personal Redeemer has been wrecked, for this teaching demands that one empty himself of his Evangelical faith and cease to think of God as his personal Father. Said one who had had experience with this subtle cult and its author, "She demanded of me that I give up my belief in a personal God." Another testified, "My faith in a personal God received a severe strain, but I never lost it altogether." This "Science" tears away the very foundations of truth and accustoms man to the constant repetition of a falsehood until it appears the truth. The condition of such souls finds portrayal by the inspired pen, "How are they brought into desolation, as in a moment they are utterly consumed with terAs a dream when one awaketh," they despise the image that has held their sleeping moments. In dealing with these opinions, we have to do with Mind rors. Christ's Cure, and a very old superstition woven as a continuous thread through a patchwork of Christian truths. Its methods are those of subterfuge. The potato cure for rheumatism, the bone cure for toothache, can point triumphantly to multitudes of cures. A certain patent medicine that was advertised as having cured long lists of people who had taken it in dozen lots was proved to be nothing but bad whisky and molasses. The venders of many patent medicines can show a far greater number of cures effected than can Christian Science. Under the head of "Fruitage" the book "Science and Health" enumerates its own victories in the same way. All the quacks and charlatans, humbugs and deceivers of humanity can do the same thing. Successful physicians can boast of their cures. More than all great Doctor Nature can show a larger majority than all other systems and schools combined. But subterfuge cannot last always. It is bound to get to the end of its tether. To tell a man with a jumping toothache that there is no such thing as pain, that it is all in his mind, and that he must attain a serene and undisturbed composure of the imagination and all will be well, does not produce in him a sound tooth or a healthy nerve. But if you keep up the urging long enough the nerve may die or the man expire. Never Jesus called things by their right names. once did he drop a hint that he was not what he seemed to be. While he taught the deepest truths in the guise of parables, his meaning was always easily ascertained. Never once did he hint that his life was |