Beyond the claimed healing of disease, what does Christian Science contribute to the welfare of the community, the state, or the nation?" was the query recently put by a man given to serious thought. "It maintains no charities, indulges in no social betterment plans, engages in no institutional work, joins in no campaigns for Christian unity or hygienic education. Where does its value lie?"
"In the building of character, without which there can be no true citizenship," was the reply. "In its constructive efforts along that line are included all the activities to which you allude, and many others not comprised in organizations of any kind."
The questioner was engaged in journalism; the editor of a great daily paper in the third city of the United States. He had witnessed direct evidence of the reconstructive work of Christian Science in his own family, and yet like many others who believe themselves well informed on great movements, he had observed nothing constructive in it beyond a more or less, as he believed, effective healing of a physical disorder. To him Christian Science was merely a form of mental therapeutics competing with materia medica for patients, and for church-membership with other Christian denominations; the first being solely commercial, and the second the natural outcome of a people who wished to associate together because of mutual belief and the desire for protection. The spiritual significance of a religion that in less than half a century has swept like a tidal wave over the globe; that is erected on the basis of demonstration in place of belief; that day by day is molding and improving the character of men to the point where they can think rightly and act intelligently upon every phase of personal and communal relationship, was to him a hidden thing. All his journalistic life he had dealt with effects, believing them causes or due to causes unknown and unchangeable.
