Since ever receiving your card I have desired to write to you, and now, after what Miss Campbell has written, I hasten to reply. Her report of the success of Christian Science in benighted China, when regarded only on one side of the question, is cheering, but to look at both sides of the great subject of introducing Christian Science into a heathen nation gives it quite another aspect. I believe that all our great Master'sEditorial Note: Jesus Christ sayings are practical and scientific. He warns against casting pearls before swineMatt 7:6 ¶Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you. .
If the dowager EmpressEditorial Note: Empress Dowager Cixi (1835-1908) was the de facto ruler of China's Qing dynasty for nearly fifty years. She entered the Forbidden City as a low-ranking concubine, and rose to power after orchestrating the 1861 Xinyou Coup following the Xianfeng Emperor's death. Ruling behind the thrones of her son and nephew, Cixi balanced modernization with dynastic survival. She championed the industrial Self-Strengthening Movement but crushed the radical Hundred Days' Reform in 1898. Her support for the anti-foreign Boxer Rebellion proved catastrophic, yet her late-reign reforms modernized education and governance, cementing her formidable but polarizing legacy. could control her nation, there would be no danger in now teaching Christian Science in her country. But a war on religion in China would be more fatal than the Boxers' rebellionEditorial Note: The Boxer Rebellion (1899-1901) was an anti-imperialist, anti-Christian uprising in northern China, initiated by a secret society known as the Yihequan ("Righteous and Harmonious Fists," or "Boxers"). Fueled by severe drought, economic hardship, and mounting resentment toward foreign spheres of influence and missionary activities, the Boxers targeted foreigners and Chinese Christian converts. In June 1900, backed by Empress Dowager Cixi, Boxer forces besieged Beijing's foreign legations for 55 days. An Eight-Nation Alliance invaded, lifted the siege, and occupied the capital. The resulting 1901 Boxer Protocol imposed devastating war indemnities and foreign troop garrisons, severely weakening the Qing dynasty before its 1912 collapse..
Silent prayer in and for a heathen nation is just what is needed. But to teach and to practise Christian Science before the minds of the people are prepared for it, and when the laws are against it, is fraught with danger. The dear Countess Von Moltke has come to see that your textbook, SCIENCE AND HEALTHEditorial Note: Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, cannot be translated at present even in Germany.
Some of the editions of leading newspapers in New York City, Philadelphia, etc., have addressed letters to me asking if the Empress dowager is a Christian Scientist, and I have not thought it wise, in consideration of your safety and of her nation, to assume at this date that she is a Christian Scientist[*]Archival Note: The following punctuation mark is circled..
Give my kind regards to our much respected Minister your husband[*]Archival Note: The following punctuation mark is circled.. Please give my love to Miss Campbell. and thank her for her letter to me and so forth
Pardon (if it needs forgiveness) my frankness in this letter and know that it proceeds from the best motives.