Article July 22, 1944 Issue

Instantaneous Healing in Church Services

IANTHE P. PARKS

Under the heading "The Christ-mission," our inspired Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.136), "Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing." Our Church Manual records the establishment of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, as follows (p. 17): "At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, April 12, 1879, on motion of Mrs. Eddy, it was voted, —To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."

There is ample proof today that Christian Science is healing the sick, and is therefore restoring to humanity the lost element of Christ-healing which distinguished the early church. Let us, however, consider particularly one outstanding feature of primitive Christian healing as demonstrated by our Master and his disciples. This element is often expressed in the Bible narrative by one word of glorious import, the word "immediately."

In the case of the healing of the leper, it is recorded that "immediately the leprosy departed from him;" of the two blind men, that "immediately their eyes received sight;" of Simon's wife's mother, that "immediately the fever left her;" of the one "which had an infirmity thirty and eight years." that "immediately the man was made whole;" of Paul and Silas, singing praises to God in the inner prison, that, following "a great earthquake,...immediately all the doors were opened, and every one's bands were loosed;" and we know that whether or not this particular word appears in the text, the healing works performed by Jesus and his disciples were with few exceptions instantaneous.

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