Despite the frequent use of the word "mind," there are perhaps few people who use their minds less than Mrs. Eddy's disciples. Mental development is possible only where there is freedom to think, to experiment, to differ, and to originate. Are Christian Scientists permitted to think for themselves? Are they at liberty to differ or to express original views? To repeat or imitate another very little mind is required. All the Christian Science topics, lessons, and instructions are issued from headquarters, and the official readers in the denomination merely repeat these verbatim. In their Sunday meetings no original or even individual word is allowed. Of what use, then, is mentality to a consistent Christian Scientist, who believes that the truth, the only truth, the final truth, has been discovered and brought to him once for all?

In the Kentucky cave of darkness fishes and mice are found without eyes. What use could they make of sight in the darkness? Mind may become as superfluous to human beings who have nothing more to discover as eyes are to the denizens of Mammoth Cave.

The following from a letter sent to Mrs. Eddy and printed in Science and Health (p. 615) shows what small use some people have for their minds. The writer, whose initials alone are given, "L. C. L., Salt Lake City, Utah," writes how he fell from his bicycle while riding down a hill "at a rapid pace; and, falling on my left side with my arm under my head, the bone was broken about halfway between the shoulder and elbow. While the pain was intense, I lay in the dust declaring the truth, and denying that there could be a break or accident in the realm of Divine Love." So saying, he remounts his wheel and rides home and orders Science and Health to be brought to him immediately, "which I read for about ten minutes, when all pain left." When he told his story his hearers would not believe that his arm could have been broken. To prove that it had he goes to an X-ray physician, who says: "Yes, it has been broken, but whoever set it made a perfect job of it, and you will never have any further trouble from that break." The writer concludes his letter with: "This is the first of several cases of mental surgery that have come under my notice."

What shall we think of the mentality which can be the parent of such contradictions! Here is a man who admits that he fell, though "there are no accidents in the realm of Divine Love." He also admits that he broke his arm while "denying that there could be a break in the realm of Divine Love." The broken bone is set by the reading of Science and Health, although it could not have been broken, for he did not fall, seeing that there are "no accidents in the realm of Divine Love." If he did not fall, he did not break his bone. But if the bone was not broken, it was not set; and if it was not set, there was nothing to prove the healing power of Christian Science. Therefore, he did fall and did break his bone "while denying that there could be a break or an accident in the realm of Divine Love"; and a physician, a man of material science, is called in to prove that the broken bone was admirably set by "mental surgery."

Let me add that if Science and Health could set a broken bone, it could also have prevented the accident. If it could not, then Christian Science is insufficient; if it could have prevented the fall and the breaking of the bone, and did not, then it was responsible for the misfortune. The further fact that the X-ray discovered that the bone had been set proves that Mrs. Eddy's Science and Health had not been able to obliterate all the marks of the fall and the break; which again shows that accidents do happen and bones do break "in the realm of Divine Love." People who make no better use of their minds than "L. C. L." of Salt Lake City does might just as well have no more mind than the cave fishes have eyes.