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About Polk County observer. (Monmouth, Polk County, Or.) 1888-1927 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1915)
THE POLK COUNTY OBSERVER, FRIDAY, MAY 7, IB 15. Christian Science a Make-Believe Philosophy By Rev. George H. Bennett. The passing centuries have witness ed the rise and fall of many philoso phies, and the coming and going of irany leaders in human thought. The twentieth century has seen the advent of a unique system of doctrine physi cal, metaphysical, and religious, call;d ly its founder, Christian Science It has heretofore been the method of scientists and philosophers to ob serve the facts of nature and of his tory, and formulate laws and princi ples In harmony with the facts. Mrs. Eddy, however, has departed from the old-time method, and has given the philosophical world something un lieard of among the learned she has given to the elements of time and eter nity, morals and physics, some new and unheard-of definitions. Upon these new definitions of the elements and factors in the moral and physical kingdoms, Mrs. Eddy has formulated her philosophy. Most of her defini tions are widely different from those of modern scientists and metaphysi cians. This fact, however, is immater ial to Mrs. Eddy. She proceeds to build her system of philosophy upon her definitions, just as though they are true to fact; and then she flaunts her make-believe system of philosophy be fore the world, just as though it were really true. Mrs. Eddy's doctrine of Christian Science, at best, is but a make-believe system of truth. If she took herself seriously, she was laboring un der the delusion that she had made a great discovery, and was destined to found a new Bystem of philosophy, to revolutionize human thought. Her definitions, and her reasonings, and her conclusions all remind us of chil dren at play. Children at play will assume such names as Queen Victoria, General Grant, Madam Patti and An drew Carnegie. They will assume their play-house Is a palace on the Hudson; and their clothes are royal robes, bedecked with jewels. They will assume thelir soap boxes and )room handles are automobiles and steam yachts; and their crackers and cheese are the luxuries of the million aire. We are all familiar with such child's pla,y. Mrs. Eddy's system of philosophy, at best, is but child's play. It is not 3a its definitions true to fact or his tory. Its reasonings are childish. Its conclusions are absurd. It is only a make-believe philosophy. Look at some of her definitions: t "Matter has no life, hence It has.no real existence," (p584). The physi cist teaches in our schools that the kingdom of matter in this world com prises 78 chemical elements. These elements have a great varfety of prop erties. That they exist is demonstra table. The change in the form and con dition of iron, wrought by the appli cation of force to it, is a demonstra tion of the existence of the iron. But Mrs. Eddy tells us matter has no ex istence, because It has no life. This is illogical and false. If she had said: "Matter has no life, hence it is in ert," she would have stated a truth recognized by the scientific world. The five senses testify to our consciousness that matter has real existence and only an ignorant or Insane mind, mind ever soberly denies the testimony of the five senses unless, perchance, for humorous reasons, it Is engaged in make-believe and child's play. Man Is glvn a peculiar position In Mrs. Eddy's philosophy. She says (page 466) "Soul or spirit signifies deity and nothing else. There is no finite soul nor spirit." Here she de nies the personal being and entity of the human soul ego. Hut do you ex ist? How may you know? Here is the proof: 'I think, therefore, I am." You must exist before you can think. Further, she says: "Man is not God and God is not man" (page 480). Now, if there be no finite soul nor spirit, and if man is not God and God is not man, then what is man? Here Is her answer: "Man is not matter, he Is not made up of blood, brain, bones, and other material elements." And here she contradicts Jesus, for He said, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is horn of the spirit is spirit." So Jesus teaches that man consists of both matter and spir it. She completes her definition of man by saying: "Man is spiritual and per fect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood In Christian Science. Man is idea, the image of love; he is not physique. He is the compound idea of God, includ ing all right ideas; the generic term for all that reflects God's Image and likeness; the conscious identity of be ing as found in science. In which man is the reflection of God, or mind, and therefore is eternal; that which has no separate mind from God." (page 475). In all this verbosity Mrs. Eddy en deavors to tell us that man Is not a soul or spirit, but is only an idea. She would have us believe man has no soul or body, and "no separate mind from God." And this Is the authors wonderful discovery. Mrs. Eddy clearly contradicts the scriptures In all this, for Genesis says. "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed Into his nos trils the breath of life; and man be came a living soul." Mrs. Eddy denes Christianity as Science." She defines the corporeal senses as 'Error.' Many are the things which she defines tinder the term "Mortal Mind." Among them are, matter, animal magnetism, hyp notism, sick and sinful humanity; It includes the untrue and unreal such as depravity, evil beliefs, passions and appetites, fear, depraved will, self justification, pride, envy, physical force, deceit, hatred, revenge, sin, sickness and death. These definitions should be remembered when her book is read. Mrs. Eddy defines God as "Sub stance," (page 468). She also makes God synonymous with Mind, Soul, Spirit, Good, Truth, Principle, Deity, Love, Light, Intelligence. These are by her spelled with a capital letter. Note this, as it will assist in perceiv ing her jugglery of words. It will be quickly discovered, even by a casual and unprejudiced student, that Mrs. Eddy has involved her teachings in all the confusion and with all the cunning of an insane mind. Here is an example: "There is no pain in Truth (God) and no truth in pain. There is no nerve in Mind (God) and no mind In nerve. There Is no matter in Mind (God) and no mind in matter. There is no matter in Life (God) and no life in matter." (page 113). The words in parenthe sis are mine and are the synonyms. Here she cunningly juggles with words such as Life and life, and with all this deception calls it "Divine meta physics." Consider some of her "truths. Con sider them carefully: "Truth makes no laws to regulate sin, sickness and death, for these are unknown to Truth, and should not be recognized as reality." (page 184). The term Truth means God. Mrs. Eddy forgot the ten commandments were given by God to regulate sin. She forgot that, "The Lord struck the child that Uriah's wife bare unto Da vid, and it was very sick." She was so -infatuated that she forgot God said, "Dust thou are and unto dust, shalt thou return." "What Is termed disease does not exist. It is neither mind nor matter" (page 188). Disease is however a condition of mind or matter. Sickness, ague, weakness, pain, consumption, lothsome disease, mutilation, dropsy, wounds, lameness, sunstroke, blind-, ness, fever, palsy, insanity, pestilence, and leprosy are all mentioned in the scriptures as being real. Christ heal ed many of these disorders. Mrs. Eddy flatly denies the scriptures when she says "disease does, not exist.". "Nerves have no more sensation, apart from what belief bestows upon them, than the fibres of a plant." (488) Sensation is a fact of universal human experience and is recognized by children and adults who . know nothing about nerves, and who have no beliefs on the subject of nerves. "Heat would pass as painless from the body as gas dissipates into the air when it evaporates but for the belief that inflammation and pain must ac company the separation of heat from the body." (page 375). This is the vagary of a unbalanced mind. Heat does pass painlessly from the body. Gas does not evaporate. No Bane , mind believes that Inflammation and pain must accompany the separation of heat from the body. "Man is incapable of sin, sickness, ' and death" (page 475). This Is a flat contradiction of the scriptures, and of human experience. Jesus said, j "I go away, and ye shall seek me, i and shall die in your sin: Whither Ij go ye cannot come." And again, "I; said therefore unto you that we shall die in your sins: for except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die In your sins." And again, "Wherefore, as by one man sin entered the world, and death by sin, and so death passed j upon all men, for that all have sin- ! ned." Note also the sicknesses that followed Israel as a consequence of sin: "I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning agiif, that sholl consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart." "Evil can have no place where all space Is filled with God" (page 469). Evil, which is an act and also a rela tion dots not "fill" space. "The knowledge that brain-lobes cannot kill a man or affect the func tions of mind would prevent the brain from becoming diseased"( page 396). And still some people consider Mrs. Eddy a brilliant philosopher. Brain lobes by their form and condition do affect the functions of mind. The brain often becomes diseased In spite of knowledge and beliefs. "Inharmony would make matter the cause as well as the effect of intelli gence or Soul (God), thus attempting to separate Mind (God) from God." The words in parenthesis are mine. How sane this reasoning is: Inhar mony" makes matter the cause and ef fect of God. thus attempting to sep arate God from God. "Evil Is but an illusion and has no mal basis" (page 480). Acting on this theory, suppose you walk into the bank tomorrow with a sack and pro ceed to carry off a bushel of coin and greenbacks. If you are not shot full of unreal holes by an unreal pistol, in the unreal hands of the unreal bank er, you would be speedily seized by the unreal sheriff and hustled off to the unreal Jail, to be tried later in the un real court by an unreal Jury: to land at last in a very real penitentiary, and when you found yourself wearing the stripes, locked behind steel bars, with in high walls, and deprived of liberty the change in your condition would quickly convince you that sin and courts and prisons are real. "If sin, sickness, and death were understood as nothingness, they would disappear" pae480). The falsity of this ts seen In the fact that Christian Scientists are sinners, fall sick, and die, in spite of their labored efforts to believe sin, sickness and death are "nothingness." "Drugs and hygiene oppose the su premacy of the divine mind. Drugs and inert matter are unconscious, mindless. Certain results supposed to proceed from drugs are really caused by the faith In them which the false human consciousness is educated to feel" (page 484). Mrs. Eddy contra dicts Jesus again: "And Jesus answer ing, said unto them, "they that are whole need not a physician, but they that are Bick." Mrs. Eddy contra dicts Moses: "and he made the holy annointing oil, and the pure incense of sweet spices, according to the work of the apothecary." Mrs. Eddy also con tradicts Isaiah: "For Isaiah had said, let them take a lump of figs, and lay It for a plaster upon the boil, and he shall recover." "The, belief that life can be in mat ter or soul in body, and that man springs from dust or from an egg, Is the result of the mortal error which Christ or Truth destroys" (page 485). Read this: "For the life of the flesh is in the blood; and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atone ment for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh the atonement by reason of the life." Lev. 17:11. "When you can waken yourself or others out of the belief that all must die, you can then exercise Jesus' spir itual power to reproduce the presence of those who have thought they died but not otherwise" (page 75). By the way, what has become of Mrs. Eddy? Is she dead and buried or did she only think she died? "Jesus said of Lazarus: 'Our friend Lazarus sleepeth: but I go that I may awake him out of sleep.' Jesus re stored Lazarus by the understanding that Lazarus had never died, not by an admission that his body had died and then lived again. Had Jesus believed that Lazarus had lived or died in his body, the Master would have stood on the same plane of belief as those who buried the body, and he could not have resuscitated htm" (page 75). If Mrs. Eddy had read her New Testa ment she would have found, "Jesus said unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead." Jesus found Lazarus dead, he believed him dead, and he raised him from the dead. "Not because of muscular exercise, but by reason of the blacksmith's faith in exercise, his arm becomes stronger." On the contrary the black smith may utterly disbelieve exercise will enlarge his muscles, nevertheless, with exercise his muscleB enlarge and become stronger. "If matter were the cause of ac tion, and. if muscle, without volition of mortal mind, could life the ham mer and strike the anvil, it might be thought true that hammering would enlarge the muscles." And this is di vine physics. If matter were the cause of action, why should hammering en large the muscles, more than if mind were the cause of action? Ixonsense. "The trip-hammer is not increased in size by exercise. Why not? Since muscles are are as material as wood and iron? Because nobody believes that kind Is producing such a result on the hammer" (page 198-9). And yet fome persons believe Mrs. Eddy was inspired 'Jut notice this: "If from an injury j or from any cause, a Christian Scion- tist were seized with pain so violent! that he could not treat himself men tally the sufferer should call a sur-j geon, who would give him a hypoder mic injection" (page 464). When we read this we hoped Mrs. Eddy was re turning to a state of canity. She gives the laugh and the lie to all her va porings on the subject of sickness and suffering. But now we reach the milk in the cocoanut: "A thorough perusal of the author's publications heals sickness"; (page 446). Ha! ha! But "man is in- j capable of sin, sickness and death.". What? The foregoing quotations are tak-en from Mrs. Eddy's book "Science and Health," of the edition of 1912. They urn bright and shining examples of her physics, metaphysics and theology. Did you know "Science and Health" contained such dogmas? And are you ready to subscribe to such make-believe philosophy as worthy of serious consideration and belief? It is very doubtful if Mrs. Eddy In all her braln-stor'ms really knew Just what she was trying tb teach. She certainly could not state it in a co herent manner. Here we present her fundamental teachings: 1. God is the only real existence. 2. Matter has no real existence. 3. Man has no objective existence, but Is merely God's idea. 4. The universe, with its myriad forms of life and being and activity, has not objective existence, but exists subjectively In human minds as mere Ideas. This Is certain, for she says, "Matter is but an image of mortal mind" (page 116), and further, 'The physical universe expresses the con scious and unsconcious thoughts of mortals" (page 484). Like other demented minds, Mrs. Eddy was haunted by a terrible buga boo. It appears on nearly every page of her book. It was the dreadful thought, that mind Inheres In matter, and it was her life's mission to destroy this dreadful heresey. This haluci natlon followed her constantly. She did not know, that, while there is a maternal ism which Is false, there is al so a maternal ism which is true. 8he was not aware that six great laws are operative In the universe: The laws of action of being, and of relation. In morals; and the laws of action, of be ing, and of relation, in physics. Hsr denial of the soul, and of sin, totally annuls ths biblical doctrines of ro detn ptton In Ch list ; but th is fact makes her popular win, ths worldly minded on. She was infatuated with the delu sion that she was a great philosopher, and was destined to found a new and revolutionizing system of truth. ' That Mrs. Eddy was deluded is clear from the fact' that she totally ignored the plainest facts of every-day exper iences, the events of history, and the clearest declarations of scripture, con cerning God and man, life and death, sin and pain. Her methods of reasoning, her logic, the like of which was never seen be fore ; her meaningless passages, her ludicrous assertions made with the most pompous Bhow of profundity, and her ridiculous conclusions unmis takably stamp "Science and Health," either as a master-piece of make-believe philosophy or as a collection of vaporings produced by an unbalanced mind. It must be remembered, only an ig norant or insane mind ever soberly de nies the testimony of the five senses and the reason, unless, perchance, that person is engaged in humorous make believe, or child's play. Professional Cards DR. A. M. M'NICOL Osteopathic Physician Obstetrician Only licensed non-drug physician in Dallas. DENTIST M. HAYTER Dallas National Bank Buiuiding Dallas Oregon S. B. TAYLOR Civil Engineer and Surveyor Room 10, National Bank Building Phone 453, Dallas, Oregon., BROWN-SIBLEY ABSTRACT CO. 610 Mill street, Dallas. Only up-to-date set of abstracts of Polk county. Posted every morning from county records. Olive Smith-Bicknell Teacher of PIANO and ORGAN Studio 401 Court St. DALLAS OREGON ATTORNEY AT LAW OSCAR HAYTER Dallas City Bank Building. ' Dallas Oregoi ERNEST HANSON Carpenter and Contractor, Wall-pa-4 pering and Painting, Cement and Brick Work. 512 Orchard Ave. Phone West Red 53 DENTIST B. F. BUTLER Office over Fuller Pharmacy. Office hours from 9 to 12 a. m.i 1 to S p. m. Dallam Orego, ATTORNEY AT LAW WALTER Xi. TOOZE, JR Dallas National Bank Dallas Building Oreicoii SIBLEY Sc EAKIN Attorneys and Abstractors. The only reliable let of Abstract! la Polk County. Office on Court street Dallas, ... Oregon West Side Marble WorRs 0. L. HAWKINS, Proprietor. MONUMENTS, HEADSTONES AND CURBING. In DR. W. L. HOLLOWAY CHIROPRACTOR. Phone 822. A Lasting Friendship Fl DAVIS BEST Lit FRESH BREAD, FRUIT AND VEGETABLES EVERYDAY. Staple and Fancy Groceries SIM0NT0H & scon asOMftt. DIRECTORY The following leading merchants give3t" redeemable for first class transportation on all railroads, steamship lines or car lines. Give your patronage to ,D$fc-merchants and ask for DALLAS CIGARS CONFECTIONERY F. E. Kersey, 318 N. Main St. CLOTHING AND SHOES Price Brothers, Main St. DRUGS Conrad Stafrin, 430 Main St ELECTRICAL SUPPLIES Polk County Electrical Supply Co., Court St, GROCERIES & HARDWARE , C. L. Crider, 314 Main St. HOTEL Gall Hotel, Famous Meals. LADIES' FURNISHINGS Mrs. Clms. Gregory, Main St. LAUNDRY , Dallas Steam Laundry. MEAT MARKET Gohrke Meat Market, 308 Main St. MILLINERY Miss Flora McCallon, Opposite Post Office. MOTION PICTURES O. C. Smith, Main St. NEWSPAPER Polk County Itemlzer. SEED AND FEED S. M. Ray A Company, 226. Main St. TRANSFER W. R, Coulter, City Transfer, 620 Oak St.; Phones Main 343 Rural, Main 1061 Stand, Barn 1064. WALL PAPER Dungan Brothers, 510 Wash ington St. FALLS CITY FURNITURE HARDWARE 3. C. Talbot & Co., Main St. HOTEL New Falls Hotel, Excellent Dining Room Service. MERCANTILE COMPANY Falls City Mercantile Co. MILLINERY Falls City Millinery. SPORTING GOODS AND CON FECTIONERY B. L. Ellis. .Redemption Station for Dal las" and Falls City PRICE BROTHERS CLOTHES SHOP DALLAS OREGON if I-" r Reserve Your Rooms for the big EXPOSITION $1 TO $2 A DAY Address: HOTEL THOMAS Next Door to Everything in San Francisco 971 Mission Street Near Sixth ON DIRECT CAR LINE TO THE EXPOSITION AND DEPOTS San Francisco, Cal. Do You Know That we Lave opened a butcher shop in the old Lewis building at Airlie? Well we have, and we want to get ac quainted. Call and see us. And don't for get to watch this space. It will pay you to do it. Airlie Meat Market C. W. SPRING, Proprietor. Airlie, Oregon. Send It By Parcel Post Send a your laundry by parcel post. The rural carrier la bow authorised to transact this business. It costs but a few cents. Well rerun it promptly. DALLAS STEAM LACKDRT. I LUMBER C I irrv office When We Hand You Our Estimates of the cost of the lumber yon require yon can depend upon it that the of ores will be a low ai flnrt-claaa, well seasoned lumber can be told for hon estly. If yon pay more yon pay too much. If yon pay leas yon f et lean either in quality or quantity. Willamette Valley Lumber Co.