Truth and Counterfeit
Christian Science— Its genesis and doctrine— Dr. Gordon's indictment of it— Healing by faith— Remarkable answers to prayer in Dr. Gordon's experience
THE early eighties saw the rise and development of a new delusion in that city which has proved, spite of its claim to the highest culture, so prolific in such growths. " Christian Science " is the misnomer by which it goes. Its Christianity has in it more of parody than of actuality. Of science, in the accepted sense of the word, there is not even what the chemists call a trace. This is clear from a cursory reading of its text-book, " Science and Health," a work nebulous to the point of mystification, badly written, and bearing in its own body its self-evidencing refutation. The spring of this superstition is, we are inclined to believe, in " transcendentalism." We recognize the old Emersonian "pass" of the hand, the worn trick of subjectivism, in the declaration, for example, that "decaying flower, withering grass, blighted and gnarled oak, ferocious beasts, sicknesses of all sorts and all qualities, are but the falsities of matter, the changing images of mortal mind; not in reality substance, but only belief in it." The elusive opinions of the Concord philosophy running underground here come to the surface again, muddy, defiled, yet recognizable. For Gnosticism runs through the same cycle in Boston as in Alexandria. Thaumaturgy ends in theurgy, lamblichus succeeds Plotinus, Mrs. Eddy follows Emerson and Alcott.
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These delusions have their rise and fall like the trajectory of an arrow, reaching the heights of popular interest only to drop finally into obscurity and neglect. It was so with spiritism, whose great, gloomy fane still towers on a prominent Boston thoroughfare, though the influence of its uncanny creed is now a thing of the past. It must be so shordy with this new wonder-working system. For, as if its own claims to be an inspired commentary on Jesus' words— a new revelation again " opened to humanity after a long night of materialism (i.e., nineteen centuries) through the spiritual understanding," a new apocalypse as pretentious as that of Swedenborg or of the Utah Saints— were not enough to confute and destroy it, it has, in later years, developed a curious special cuhus of which the author of " Science and Health " seems to be the subject. Her words are given equal authority with those of Jesus himself, if one may judge by the impartiality with which quotations from her book alternate with those from the New Testament on the walls of the " First Church of Christ, Scientist." As priestess of the new dispensation, and as revealer of the arcana, she is reverenced with almost Delphic honors. The black haircloth rocking-chair in which her book was written is an object of veneration by the sect. The very plumbing of her boudoir has been gold-plated, while her apartments have been decorated by her followers with an elegance worthy of Schoenbrunn or Balmoral, and comically suggestive of Hood's hues
" Only propose to blow a bubble,
And Lord! what thousands will subscribe for soap!"
Surely the next phase of the movement must be dissolution. There can be nothing beyond!
In the April " Congregationalist " of 1885 appeared a long article by Gordon, which, circulated later by the thousand in pamphlet form, proved an effective antitoxin for the cure
TRUTH AND COUNTERFEIT »35
of this wide-spread malady. The clogged, heavy, illogical style, weighted with a pseudo-philosophical phraseology, is cut through and through by this keen little pamphlet, clear and clean as a rapier, till nothing remains of the system but waving, torn shreds. Its subjective and unwarrantable quotations of Scripture are exposed. This in itself was no hard task, however, for the unreality and falsity of this new mongrel idealism lies bare and naked upon every page of its text-book.
The pamphlet is entitled " Christian Science tested by Scripture." From it we make these excerpts
" Whatever results this system may effect in healing the body, it has given grounds for the suspicion that, as affecting the heart, it is a system of spiritual malpractice and is leading its subjects away from the simple faith of the gospel into a vague and transcendental misbelief. It is indeed an insidious delusion. Its large use of the Bible, its strenuous demand for holiness and self-abnegation in its disciples, the results apparently effected in its ministry to the sick— these are powerful considerations for attracting converts by giving them the impression that they are getting some finer quality of Christianity. Its philosophy, briefly stated, is this: Evil is not; sin, sickness, and death are unreal; ' matter and the mortal body are nothing but a belief and illusion; ' ' there is neither a personal Deity, a personal devil, nor a personal man.' Let us test these propositions by Scripture.
Christian Science
Jesus never ransomed man by
paying the debt that sin incurs
whosoever sins must suffer. — II.,
189.
Sin is not forgiven; we cannot escape its penalty.— II., 165.
Holy Scripture In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.—Col. i. 14.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.— I John i. 9.
Christian Science
Petitioning a personal Deity is a misapprehension of the source and means of all good and blessedness; therefore it cannot be beneficial.—II., 170.
Asking God to pardon sin is a
vain repetition such as the heathen
use. Habitual goodness is praying
without ceasing.—II., 173.
The belief that man has a sepa-
rate life or soul from God is the
error that Jesus came to destroy.
II., 90.
Science decides matter or the
mortal body to be nothing but a
belief and an illusion.— II., 193.
Man is coeternal and coexistent
with God, and they are inseparable
in divine science.—I., 173.
Holy Scripture In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.—Phil. iv. 6.
For thy name's sake pardon mine iniquity.—David, Ps. xxv. 11.
And forgive us our sins.—Luke
xi. 4.
From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.—Ps. xc. 2.
The soul that sinneth, it shall die.—Ezek. xviii. 20.
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body.—Rom. vi. 12.
He shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dvvelleth in you.—Rom. viii. 11.
So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him.—Gen. i. 27.
" Beyond these palpable contradictions of the Word of God, we must confess also the shock which it gives to hear Jesus constantly spoken of as a metaphysician and demonstrator of Christian Science— 'the most scientific man that ever trod the globe ;' to be told that the cause of his agony in the garden was that he was touched with ' the utter error of a belief of life in matter '; that on the cross he was giving the world ' an example and proof of divine science '; that his Christianity ' destroyed sin, sickness, and death because it was metaphysics, and denied personal sense, bore the cross, and reached the right hand of a perfect principle.'...
" Every text-book which we have examined on the subject brings this art of healing into acknowledged connection with pantheistic and Buddhistic principles. The mind which acts
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on mind is irreverently confounded with the eternal Mind. For example, in 'The Primitive Mind Cure,' by W. F. Evans, the author, after quoting one who declares that an idea directed upon the seat of a supposed ailment causes a stream of nervous energy to flow toward the secreting organ, says: ' This nervous energy I prefer to call the universal, divine life-principle in nature, the akasa of the Hindu metaphysics, an all-pervading, omnipresent, vivific principle of life and motion, identical in its higher aspects with the Holy Spirit of the gospels.' This we call pantheism of the most revolting type, a confounding of the third person of the blessed Trinity with a secretion of the nerves. In this book, too, is evolutionism of a very profane sort. 'As the cabala expresses it, the mineral becomes a plant, the plant an animal, the animal a man, and man becomes divine. This is the divine Man, the Christ of Paul, at the same time a divine personage and a universal, humanized principle of life and light.' After telling us that the Christ is the ' universal spirit,' the ' all-pervading, divine presence,' it is declared that, ' owing to the unexampled spiritual evolution of the man Jesus, his individual life became merged and blended into unity with the Only- Begotten of the Father, the universal Christ.' All this and much more of the same quality there is, which we would not quote except to warn Christians who are swallowing without suspicion this book and others of the same family. It is a sort of witches' caldron, in which every conceivable heathen and Christian heresy is found seething and simmering to produce the subtle essence called ' mental medicine.'
" Now, reading in a work lies like this, and seeing on almost every page its connection with theosophy, esoteric Buddhism, cabalism, and pantheism, the roots of these doctrines all the while being so artlessly entwined with apparently devout and reverent exposition of Scripture as to deceive the very elect and then turning to the metaphysical healers who are going
13^ ADONIRAM JUDSON GOUDON
to their patients, some of them, at least, filled with the evil philosophy of this manual, and winning such reputed success as to have caused a rare stir in our country, what shall We say?
"We say two things, viz., that there may be some psychic force here, mind-contagion or what not, which experts can show to account for the whole matter; or there may be something deeper. For us, we have the strongest conviction of the existence of a personal devil, not omnipotent, but endowed with an infernal ingenuity. It has been his steady policy either to parody Christianity by inventing spurious imitations, or to adulterate it with such heathen mixtures as to ' turn the truth of God into a lie.' The literature of Christian Science presents clearly enough such a pagan adulteration of the religion of Christ; and we greatly fear that ' the prince of the power of the air ' may be appropriating and reinforcing whatever occult principle of healing there may be in this system, and using it to accredit his own gospel.
" It will be hardly necessary, after what has been said, to distinguish ' Christian Science ' from the ' prayer of faith,' which is said in Scripture to 'save the sick.' No one who believes this promise or makes use of it has ever, so far as we know, considered that its fulfilment depends on the action of mind upon mind. All who credit 'faith-cures,' as they are sometimes called, hold that they are the result of God's direct and supernatural action upon the body of the sufferer. ' Christian Science ' pointedly denies the efficacy of prayer for the recovery of the sick. It says: ' Asking God to heal the sick has no effect to gain the ear of love, beyond its ever presence. The only beneficial effect it has is mind acting on the body through a stronger faith to heal it; but this is one belief casting out another— a belief in a personal God casting out a belief in sickness, and not giving the understanding of the principle that heals.' ('Science and Health,' ii., 171.)
TRUTH AND COUNTERFEIT I39
Here the antagonism between two things that differ is so marked that we only need to call attention to it.
" All this we have written from no love of controversy and from no personal ill will toward those whom we criticize, but for the warning of Christians, lest they be beguiled away from the simplicity that is in Christ. Let such as would abide in the truth give heed to the clear denials of Scripture indicated in the quotations above; and then remember the warnings of St. Paul to avoid the 'oppositions of science falsely so called: tvhich some professing have erred concerning the faithJ And when this science talks about Jesus Christ's ' supposed life in matter,^ let them remember that some in the days of St. John spoke precisely thus— ' Gnostics ' or ' scientists ' they were called — and that of them the gentle apostle is supposed to have written when he said, ' For many deceivers are entered into the world, ivho confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist.' And finally, remembering the saying of Calvin, which accords with Scripture and the universal testimony of the early church, that ' Satan perverts the things which otherwise are truly works of God, and misemploys miracles to obscure the glory of God,' let us, with sober watchfulness, pray daily as our Lord has taught us (R. V.), ' Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the Evil One.'
" Bar-Jesus the sorcerer forever dogs the steps of Christ Jesus the healer as he walks through the sick-wards of the world," wrote Gordon later, " and whoever encounters his Satanic miracles should infer that the Lord is not far off performing gracious works through the prayers and faith of his servants." The charlatanry of spiritualism and Christian Science, as well as Romish appeals to bones and vestments and shrines, was, he believed, the devil's travesty upon a vital truth. That these wrought cures he did not deny, for " all power " * is * " Whose coming is... with all power and signs and lying wonders " (2 Thess. ii. 9).
140 ADONIRAM JUDSON GORDON
ascribed to the adversary. The impulse, however, of which these cures were an expression he believed to be from below, its purpose being the exaltation of evil systems to the discredit of God's supernatural workings. " God never puts a man upon the stage that Satan does not immediately bring forward an ape." * " Yet let us not abandon our wheat-field," Gordon would say, " because the devil has sown tares. The fact that he sows tares is his testimony to the genuineness of the wheat."
" The Ministry of Healing," published somewhat before this time, discusses the subject at length from his point of view. Miracles occurred in apostolic times. They occurred subsequently, according to patristic testimony. With the periodical renaissance of vigorous religious life in such movements as Pietism, Methodism, etc., have come almost invariably the same manifestations of God's willingness to heal. The tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations, bears its fruit every month. " The test is, ' if thou believest,' not if thou wast bom in Palestine and within the limits of the first Christian century." In the early church healing by faith as enjoined by James seems to have been a sacrament pointing forward to the restitution and renewal of mankind, as baptism symbolized the resurrection, and as the communion pointed to the coming of Christ. " But while the prayer of faith which saves us is the simplest exercise of the heart, the prayer of faith which saves the sick is the most exacting." This being so, the practice fell largely into disuse, the only suggestion of it which survives in formal ecclesiastical life being extreme unction, " wherein an ordinance for life is perverted into an ordinance for death."
. He was inclined to believe further that Jesus endured vicariously our sicknesses t as well as our sins, and also that " the restoration of the sick in Christ's ministry was an enacted
* Godet. t Matt. viii. 17.
TRUTH AND COUNTERFEIT I4I
prediction of the final redemption of the body, a pulse-beat from the heart of him who is the resurrection and the hfe, giving a slight foretaste of our full recovery at his appearing and kingdom." Of this he felt the striking words in Hebrews to be premonitory where Christians are spoken of as those who have tasted the good Word of God and the powers of the age to come. " The age to come," said he, " is the resurrection age, the time of the redemption of the body. We know the powers of that age not simply by prediction and promise, but by experience. Every miracle is a foretaste thereof, a sign of its universal healing and restitution. The driftwood and floating vegetation which met the eye of Columbus as he was keeping lookout upon his ship assured him of his proximity to the new world which he was seeking. His study of geography had convinced him of the existence of that world. But now he tasted its powers; he saw and handled its actual first-fruits. So it is with us voyagers to the world to come, the millennial age, and time of the restitution of all things. As those who have known and credited our Lord's miracles while on earth, or have experienced the wonders of recovery which he has wrought as he still stretches out his hand to heal, we have tasted the powers of the coming age."
" Miracles of healing " he characterized, therefore, as " manifestations of nature's perfect health, lucid intervals granted to our deranged and suffering humanity; not catastrophes, but exhibitions of that divine order which shall be brought in when redemption is completed " in the resurrection. That those who spiritualize into thin air the New Testament teaching of the resurrection of the body should deride the possibility of bodily healing by faith in Christ was not surprising to him. The denial of the greater includes the denial of the less. He was wont to remark on the grim irony of the fact that in the history of the church, when the departure of the spirit at death began to be confused with the return of Christ with resurrecr42 ADONIRAM JUDSON GORDON'
tion powers, we should then first find miracles of healing alleged by contact with the bones of dead saints and martyrs instead of miracles of healing through the prayer of faith offered to the living Christ. The current sentimental estimate which makes of death not " the last enemy," but a good angel, a messenger of release, finds its counterpart in the opinion which describes death's adjutant, sickness, as a servant of the Most High, To an article which contended that the miracles of cure recorded in the New Testament were for those on a lower plane, and that others, like Paul, of finer organization can have a fuller spiritual life in bodily weakness than in good health, he replied
" We appeal to experience, and ask whether our readers
have found it easier to maintain communion with God when they have been prostrated with illness and racked with pain than when they have been in buoyant health. We have found just the opposite to be true— that sickness and debility are a great drawback to devotion. We appeal to Scripture again, and ask whether, because Paul's thorn in the flesh was overruled to his spiritual chastening, he did not nevertheless speak the truth when he called it a messenger of Satan. An old writer says, ' The Lord often sharpens his saints on the devil's grindstone.' This we admit most fully; but we do not therefore advise that that grindstone be set up as a part of the
furniture of the Lord's house. We question not that out-
breaking sin is often overruled for the final salvation of the offender, as in the case of one who declared in a public address that had he never been a drunkard he probably should never have become a Christian. His statement can be readily credited; yet we would not recommend drunkenness as a preparatory dispensation to grace, for sin is of the devil. In a word, we must distinguish between what our Lord overrules and what he ordains. If in his vast mercy he thwarts the Evil One, making sin and sickness work to our good, we must not
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therefore sanctify these things into an ordinance, lest we make Christ the minister of sin."
Curiously enough, while prayer for the sick is almost the commonest form of petition among Christians, a belief in the efficacy of such prayer and in the direct answer to the call for healing is freely scouted as fanaticism. " Therefore we need," said Gordon, " less praying for the sick rather than more only the less should be real and deep and intelligent and believing." The divine help is not to be invoked lightly or as a substitute for God's natural provision in medicine and hygiene. Nor is it a grace for those without depth of spiritual life or for those with whom exercise in prayer is not habitual and prevailing. Yet if the superior faith of prophets and apostles is brought forward to discourage this practice it should still be remembered that to the injunction in James to " pray one for another, that ye may be healed," is added a significant note on the powerfully effective prayers of Elias, " a man subject to like passions as we are."
To the objection that prayers for the sick are often, apparently, unanswered, he replied with a disarming tu quoque. " Holding such views as we Christians do," he would say, " in regard to the efficacy of prayer for the conversion of souls, and resting on the plain declaration of God our Saviour that he will have all men saved, how can we explain the fact that the
mass of men go down to death unreconciled to God? We
must remember both Melita and Miletum. In one place Paul healed the father of Publius by his prayers; in the other he left Trophimus sick."
He realized, nevertheless, the great perplexities in the whole matter. " I have little to say in regard to the principles of divine healing," he says in a letter, " but am looking constantly for light. It is a subject full of difficulties, and I shrink more and more from undertaking any philosophy of it. I do my best with every case which comes before me."
When the sick sought him out he prayed with them in quietness and reserve. Many remarkable answers were vouchsafed. The statements of some of the healed are subjoined:
Rev. Joseph C. Young, Boston, Mass.
"In 1887 there appeared a growth on my lip. When first noticed it was very small, but gradually increased until it seriously interfered with my preaching. A physician of good standing, after two examinations, told me that it was cancer and that I had better put my house in order, as he believed I had only a short time to live. Though believing in healing by faith, I had no appropriating faith to claim the promisey^r myself, yet I constantly sought divine guidance. For a week I had no light. At the end of this time the promise in James v. 14 came into my mind like a new revelation. I had read and quoted it to others hundreds of times, but now it came direct to me with an indescribable force. I believed it immediately. Then
came a perplexity—who were the elders of the church? Who
could offer the prayer of faith for me? I knew many in Brooklyn, my home, and in New York, who professed faith in this promise, but I had no inclination to call them. I made the matter a subject of special prayer for some days, and the name of Dr. Gordon, with whom I was only slightly acquainted, was so vividly thrust into my mind that I accepted it as an answer to my prayer. The appointment was made to meet him in Boston with Mr. McElwain and Dr. Peck. I told them why I had come, and asked if they could take the promise in James and pray in faith for my healing. They replied that they could, and Dr. Gordon prayed, anointing me according to the instructions. I was in the study only a short time, and went away almost immediately after the prayer. I had no more pain or trouble from the cancer, and within a few weeks all signs of it had disappeared. It has never returned. The promise was believed, the prayer was offered, I
TRUTH AND COUNTERFEIT 145
was healed. ... I give this testimony with some reluctance. It is not a subject to be too much advertised. The Spirit heals according to the will of God, not according to our will. There has been too much fleshly formulating of theories on this as on all other teachings of the Bible, and for that reason less of the power of God manifested."
Mr. Mial Davis, a lumber-merchant of Fitchburg, Mass., writes
" Next to my conversion, the divine healing in the study of dear Dr. Gordon was the most remarkable experience of my life. In 1889 I was prostrated. The right thigh seemed to lose its vitality to such a degree that it seemed for a time impossible to bring hfe back to it. Some of my friends wished to remove me to the Massachusetts General Hospital to see if amputation could not save me. I said no; I was ready to die. Years of prostration followed. At intervals I could go about with crutch or cane; at other times I was confined to
my bed. I could do little or nothing at my business. My
mind finally turned to the study of healing by faith. After correspondence I forced myself, in great weakness, on crutches to Dr. Gordon's study. He laid his hand upon my heart and, oh, what a prayer for my recovery, what pleading with God! Brother McElwain's prayer followed, then my own poor prayer. Oh, what a miniature transfiguration of Jesus was there! The very place was holy ground. That was the day of days to me. You probably know how I went ' walking and leaping, praising God.' I rose from my knees after all of us had prayed, went out on the sidewalk to go to the depot. I felt that new life had come to my knee and limb from thigh to foot. I walked up and down the cars while on my way home, praising God and giving him the glory. I had worn rubber bands round my knee, leg, and ankle, but the next morning I did not put them on and never have worn them since. My crutches and cane were laid aside.
I have been able to do far more church work and business than ever I expected to do... ."
Miss Emma Davis, Southboro, Mass., writes " I suffered for years from seasons of utter prostration and
acute suffering, with insomnia frequent and prolonged. My
left side was a little, weak, shrunken thing, and my spine was badly curved, the right side being much too large and bowed. A few years since, when my attention was called to the Lord's healing, I was about as full of unbelief and prejudice as one could be. But prejudice began to melt away under the light of the Word, and I began to believe that possibly I might be helped. I consecrated myself to God as never before, dear friends prayed earnestly in my behalf, and, as fully as I knew how, I placed my case in the hands of the great Physician. For a while I was better. Then new ills came upon me until it seemed at times as though my very reason would leave me.... About this time I was most definitely led to write to Dr. Gordon. An interview followed. He seemed fearful lest I should fix my faith on the human agency instead of on the
divine. He said most emphatically, ' I have no power.'
'But,' repl'ed I, 'you have faith in the One who has.' He smiled, and asked some very searching questions as to my faith to receive, as to consecration, and the use of God-given health.
" He appointed a day when he would with others pray with me for my healing. When I came to his study I was suffering intensely. With others he prayed for me, placing his hands on my head. I felt no change. Reaching home, I was soon prostrated with the old misery, suffering terribly night and day for nearly two weeks, but over and over again came to me the words, ' Fear not, only believe; ' and there was a deep stillness and peace in my soul, beyond anything I had ever experienced. The trial of faith was fiery, but I knew deliverance was near. One morning about the middle
TRUTH AND COUNTERFEIT 147
of April I woke without a pain in my body, and, as I then expressed it, ' they are all carried away into the wilderness.' With a new song in my heart, even praises to God, and with faithful promises, I rose up to serve anywhere the Lord might indicate. It is now almost four years, and I have had no return of my old pains or sickness. The change in my deformity is most marked. All the pads and artificial means of relief are dispensed with.... Until my healing I was always over-tired, and the more tired the more pain and insomnia. Now no matter how much I exert myself I wake fresh and rested in the mornings.... Can any one explain away this sudden lifting of nearly thirty years' misery? "
Mrs. Gertrude Floyd Cole (deceased),— statement of husband:
"She was a fragile girl from her youth up, a few days at school being sufficient to exhaust her for weeks. Yet she was ever a person of great piety and of a pronounced spiritual life. Coming to Boston, she found work as a sewing-woman. The confinement brought on consumption of the most malignant type, accompanied by severe hemorrhages. The physician pronounced her case hopeless. Dr. Gordon, on one of his visits, the last preceding his departure to the country, conversed with the dying girl. He asked her if she could rely on the Lord Jesus Christ to raise her up, human aid having done all in its power. She said that she could, and that henceforth she surrendered herself to Christ. He prayed the prayer of faith as recorded in James, and left her in God's hands. She abandoned medicine, but sank beyond all indications of hfe, and was pronounced to have passed away. She did indeed pass into the world of eternal life, and heard that which cannot be recorded other than that she was told that her life-work was not yet complete. Whi'.e the attendants were making ready for her burial, she showed signs of returning life. From that hour her hemorrhages ceased and a warm and grateful healing sensation permeated her lungs, and she was raised to health. Dr. Gordon, on returning from the country in the fall, met her on the street and did not know her, so perfectly had she recovered. This was his first intimation of her healing. She lived many years, married, engaged in Christian work, and died finally, though not of consumption."