Page:The Life of Mary Baker G. Eddy.djvu/543

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HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

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of mental healing. Through Dr. Warren F. Evans and Mr. and Mrs. Julius A. Dresser the Quimby idea,^[1] previous to the Christian Science interpretation of it, had been slowly and laboriously coming into a limited practice; but with the entrance of Mrs. Eddy into the field, with her extravagant claims of miraculous revelation and her violent methods of procedure, the whole movement received a tremendous impetus; and unconsciously and very much against her will, she has been the most effective agent in promoting Quimbyism as well as Eddyism. For, although it has been one of Mrs. Eddy's chief cares to stem the progress of the rival school, and to raise an impassable barrier between her own cult and that of all other mental healers, it has not disturbed the fact that for practical purposes, Eddyism is simply Quimbyism, overlaid with superstition and ignorance; and the future of Mrs. Eddy's school depends largely upon the willingness of her followers to continue their self-deception on this point, which is the chief requirement of her religion.

Whatever there is of value to the world in Mrs. Eddy's system, lies in the practicality of its healing methods, and the foregoing chapters have shown that Mrs. Eddy realises this,

↑ The reader who is interested in Quimby's teaching and healing is referred to The True History of Mental Science, by Julius A. Dresser, published by George H. Ellis, 272 Congress Street, Boston.

Dr Warren F. Evans, in his book, Mental Medicine, published three years before the first edition of Science and Health, said: Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There is a law here which the world will sometime understand and use in the cure of the diseases that afflict mankind. The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of the most remarkable cures, effected by psychopathic remedies, at the same time proved the truth of the theory and the efficiency of that mode of treatment. Had he lived in a remote age or country, the wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would now have been deemed either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce the wonders of Gospel history. But all this was only an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the action of the law of faith, over a patient in the impressible condition."

[1] The reader who is interested in Quimby's teaching and healing is referred to The True History of Mental Science, by Julius A. Dresser, published by George H. Ellis, 272 Congress Street, Boston.

Dr Warren F. Evans, in his book, Mental Medicine, published three years before the first edition of Science and Health, said: Disease being in its root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure the disease. By faith we are thus made whole. There is a law here which the world will sometime understand and use in the cure of the diseases that afflict mankind. The late Dr. Quimby, of Portland, one of the most successful healers of this or any age, embraced this view of the nature of disease, and by a long succession of the most remarkable cures, effected by psychopathic remedies, at the same time proved the truth of the theory and the efficiency of that mode of treatment. Had he lived in a remote age or country, the wonderful facts which occurred in his practice would now have been deemed either mythical or miraculous. He seemed to reproduce the wonders of Gospel history. But all this was only an exhibition of the force of suggestion, or the action of the law of faith, over a patient in the impressible condition."

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