may cure a patient
by what is known as "suggestion," that is, by producing in the patient
a strong belief that he will get well. Christian Science suggestion
takes the form of "silent treatment" and "absent treatment," in which
the patient is influenced by the auto-suggestions of health which the
silent pressure of the "practitioner" or the knowledge of the "absent
treatment" leads him to make.

Christian Science education consists in the reading of "Science and
Health," of the Bible, as interpreted by Mrs. Eddy (after Quimby), and
of the teachings received at the hands of Christian Science
practitioners. Although there is much that is false and harmful in the
education thus received, I believe that a good many warped minds do
find in it the corrective twist which they need--just as a certain
type of crooked spine may be helped by a violent twist in the other
direction.

Work-cure is, I think, the sanest and most helpful part of Christian
Science, as of all other types of psychotherapy. The Christian
Scientists do set idle people to work and turn inverted attention
outward upon the world. This is a great service--the greatest, I
think, that can be done to a human being. By setting their patients to
the work of healing and teaching others, Christian Scientists have
wisely availed themselves of the greatest healing power on earth.

I believe that suggestion, education, and work-cure can be used in far
safer and saner ways by physicians, social workers, and teachers or
clergymen properly trained for the work than by the Christian
Scientists. Heretofore these last have held the field of psychotherapy
largely without competition. American physicians have confined
themselves mostly to physical and chemical methods (diet, drugs, and
surgery), which have a place in the cure of functional disease, but
not, I think, the chief place.

Now that scientific psychotherapy is being taken up by physicians,
social workers, and educators (including the clergy), not instead of,
but in conjunction with physical and chemical treatment, I think it is
reasonable to expect that Christian Science will have to stick closer
to the truth if it is to hold its ground in competition.

SOUTH STREET

BY FRANCIS E. FALKENBURY

As I came down to the long street by the water, the sea-ships
drooped their masts like ladies bowing,
Curtseying friendly in a manner olden,
Shrouds and sails in silken sunlight flowing,
Gleaming