[The following article is copied from the February issue of The World To-Day, and is published here with permission of the editor of that magazine. Mrs. Burnham is well known to the reading public as the author of "The Right Princess," "Jewel," "Dr. Latimer," and a number of other successful books.—Editor Journal.]
IN this eminently practical age, when proof of utility is demanded and mere words amount to little, why do people speculate and write so much about Mrs. Eddy rather than study the effect of her teachings among the people to whom she has shown again the light Christ Jesus brought into the world? Sometimes it seems as though it were because there is little to criticise in the well organized churches and the earnest integrity of their members. Scientists are accused of worshiping Mrs. Eddy! If only their traducers and critics would trouble themselves as little with that lady's personality—past and present—as do the Scientists, and would direct the same amount of effort toward learning what it is that she really teaches, the world would be the gainer.
The excitement which prevails when a patient dies under Christian Science treatment might be calmed by the consideration that forty million die annually under materia medica. The exasperation caused by the statement that matter is not substantial might give way to sincere inquiry, since now the natural scientists announce that matter has been found to consist not of atoms, as has previously been believed, but of force.
