Page:The Cambridge History of American Literature, v4.djvu/119

Science and Health 53i made effective a recognized principle in psychology. On a smaller scale others too have obtained results. The Emmanuel Movement and the Nazarene Society, though they differ in content and technique, have made a worthy record in their field. No matter what their language, the healing plans usually use suggestion as psychologically defined, re-enforced by faith, and Christian churches are experimenting with religious healing methods without breaking with the family doctor. Drugless healing has been everywhere subjected to scienti- fic study. Professor Goddard's only interest is psychological, and he reports that the cases he has studied cover almost the whole field of pathology. Of the patients thirty-three per cent. claimed instantaneous healing, fifty per cent, a gradual cure, and seventeen per cent, incomplete. Parkyn, Van Rhen- terghem, Cabot, and others have made analogous studies and make similar reports. Christian Science submits to no sudh tests. It admits practically no limitations to its possibility of cures. Percentages are therefore not scientifically ascertain- able in Christian Science. But the average man has perhaps little interest in scientific percentages. He is a pragmatist. He takes his neighbour's word. He is apt to agree with Theodore Dreiser that "If a religion will do anybody any good, for Heaven's sake, let him have it." In these days when suffering is more general and more in- tense, many honestly report that they find in Science and Health what Ex-President Cro well calls "a remarkable personal narra- tive, combining the contemplative and the practical in the field of Christian teaching." There are (as in the chapter on prayer, where in spite of the discouragement of petition and of audible expression there is a deeply religious spirit) some pas- sages which seem helpful in spiritual distress. The general effect of the book has been to encourage daily Bible reading until today Christian Scientists are probably the most numer- ous and most faithful Bible readers in the world. Dean Charles Reynolds Brown of Yale University is convinced that Christian Scientists, with this book before them, as "a class are upright and clean. ' ' With allowance for those in every religion who do not try to live up to its highest teachings, they measurably -avoid friction and irritation and preserve considerable serenity and other worldUness amid temptations which many of us seem