nother
form, not with cowl and cape, but tricked out with feminine finery and
jewelry and gems that lure and dazzle. There is one thing quite as
valuable as health, and that is intellectual integrity. To say, "Oh,
'Science and Health' is certainly inspired--just see how old Mrs.
Johnson was cured of the rheumatism!" is not reasoning.

And it has given the scoffers excuse for calling it woman's logic. Such
reasoning is on the plane of, "Why, Jesus must have been the only
begotten son of God, born of a virgin, for if you don't believe it, just
see the hospitals, orphan asylums and homes for the aged that
Christianity has built!" Mrs. Johnson was surely cured of the rheumatism
all right, but that does not prove that Mrs. Eddy is correct in her
claim that Eve was made from Adam's rib; that agamogenesis is a fact in
Nature; that to till the soil will not always be necessary; that human
life in these bodies will have no end; and that an absent person can
poison your health and happiness through malicious animal magnetism; or
that a good person can give you absent treatment and cure your
indigestion.

I agree with Mrs. Eddy as to the necessity of eliminating a medical
fetish, but I disagree with her about religiously preserving a
theological one. I have read "Science and Health with Key to the
Scriptures" for twenty years, and I have also read the Scriptures for a
much longer period. Also, I have lived in the same house for many
months with very intelligent Christian Scientists.

And after mature consideration I regard both the Scriptures and "Science
and Health" as largely made up of the errors of mortal mind. My
intuitions are just as valuable to me as Mrs. Eddy's were to her.

My conscience is quite as sacred to me as hers was to her. And in being
an agnostic I object to being classed as blind, stubborn, wilful,
malicious and degenerate.

We should honor our Creator by cleaving to the things that seem to us to
be true, and not abandon the rudder of our minds to any man or any
woman, be they living or dead. Let us not be dishonest with ourselves,
even to rid us of our physical diseases. As for health, I have all of it
that Christian Science ever gave or can give. I have no "testimony" of
healing to relate, for I have never been sick an hour. And I think I
know how I have kept well. I make no secret of it. It is all very
simple--nothing miraculous.

My knowledge of how to keep well is not inspired knowledge, save as al