SOME interesting facts are disclosed by the census of church attendance recently taken in New York City, but nothing more striking was. shown than that the Christian Science denomination stands eighth in the list of twelve which exhibited sufficient numerical strength to escape the general classification "Miscellaneous," or in other words, the Christian Science churches attract to their services a greater number of persons than attend the churches of four of the older denominations.
This census also discloses the fact that the oft-repeated charge that Christian Science is "a fad for women" is a figment of the imagination. The percentage of male attendants at the Christian Science churches was found to be within one per cent of the number in attendance at the Protestant churches, and considerably in excess of the average of all the churches.
That Christian Science is a woman's movement in the sense that a woman is its Discoverer and Founder, and that its adherents gladly avail themselves of her wise leadership, is true, but Christian Scientists have never been able to understand the opprobrium intended by those who have criticised the movement from this standpoint in fact, they have looked upon such critics as unworthy of mother, wife, or sister. If the intention of this criticism has been to prove that the teachings of Christian Science are unworthy the attention of men, and that they have not interested the "lords of creation," then our critics must shift their ground unless they are willing to include all religions in the same category.
