[2] _Rudimental Divine Science_, p. 10. [3] _Op. cit._, p. 10. Mrs. Eddy is so incredibly ignorant of the meaning of words in common use that she says, "Mind in matter is pantheism." It has apparently never dawned on her that her own doctrine, "God is All--All is God" is pantheism pure and simple! [4] _Ibid_. [5] _Op. cit._, p. 9. [6] Dr. Henry Rutgers Marshall, on "Psychotherapeutics," in the _Hibbert Journal_, January, 1909. [7] The Christian Science healer is supposed to have had his or her powers trained by special tuition, for which, in the ordinary course, a fee is charged. Mrs. Eddy states that she has "never taught a Primary class without several and sometimes seventeen free students in it," but adds significantly "The student who pays must, of necessity, do better than he who does not pay" (_op. cit._, p. 14). The "necessity" is not quite obvious, but the statement sets one wondering whether it would hold true if for "student" the word "patient" were substituted. [8] _Op. cit._, p. 3. [9] _Ibid._, p. 13. {141} CHAPTER IX DETERMINISM The under-emphasis of sin, we said, is one of the special dangers which threaten the present age; and nothing is more remarkable or disquieting to observe than the number of attacks that are being made to-day from quarter after quarter, all of them converging upon the same point. Now the cry is raised that sin is a mere mistake, due to ignorance; or that it is merely the absence of something, as a shadow indicates the absence of light[1]; or we are assured that "what we call 'evil' is only incidental to the progress and development of the [universal] order" [2]--a necessary step in evolution. Now again the burden of responsibility is shifted from the shoulders of the individual on to heredity and environment; or compromise with what is known to be moral evil is not only excused as a necessity, but commended as a duty; or the average person's feelings are considerately soothed by {142} the pronouncement that "the mass of a Christian congregation are about as innocent as men and women can well be in a world where natural temptations are so rife, and so many social adjustments discountenance heroic saintliness" [3]--the latter a truly admirable feat of circumlocution. And sometimes, as we have seen, sin and evil are themselves in essence negated--generally in virtue of some pseudo-philosophic or pseudo-scientific "doctrine of a universe"--as when we read that "in a universe . . . there cannot be any room for independent and creative wills, actually thwarting the Good Will." [4] Doubtless, these various statements, whether made in the name of Monism or Determinism, or some form of neo-Christianity, represent a reaction against that over-emphasis which taught that man was by nature under God's wrath and deserving of everlasting torments; but there can be no question that this reaction has gone very far in the direction of the