Article January 19, 1907 Issue

THE POINT OF DEPARTURE

CLARENCE W. CHADWICK.

This thought has often found expression, "The theology of Christian Science is beautiful; but I do not understand the healing." Wherefore the failure to understand the healing power of divine Love? Is it not because the individual has not reached "the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth" referred to in Science and Health, p. 91? For centuries good earnest Christian people have claimed to believe in a God of Love, without knowing how to express or reflect His power sufficiently to heal the sick. They have believed that Jesus did the mighty healing works attributed to him in the New Testament, but they have not thought it possible for others to perform such works, despite his explicit promise that his followers should do so. Why? Because they have failed to discern the spiritual unity existing between God and man which failure has seemingly obstructed the exercise or reflection of divine power, and relegated Christian healing to the realm of the supernatural or miraculous, instead of seeing in Jesus' healing works the natural, lawful, and orderly reflection of divine power. The belief that man has fallen from his spiritual estate, thereby establishing a gulf between himself and his Maker, has given rise to such expressions as this, recently reported in the daily press: "There can be no evangelism unless it springs out of the idea that men are lost and are condemned to eternal perdition."

Christian Science has come to establish the spiritual conviction and realization of man's unity with God, good; and the moment this recognition obtains in individual consciousness, the power of divine Love is made manifest in reflection, healing sickness and sin without the use of any material means. The healing of Jesus was the natural outcome of the theology which he taught. So it is to-day.—the healing of Christian Science is in harmonious accord with its theology, and is inseparable from it. It is the divinely natural result of scientifically applying what is found to be true concerning God and man, to wit, that because God is holy, man is holy; and in no other way can the power and activity of divine Mind ever be understood. So long as the un-Christian belief is held to, that man is "lost" or "eternally damned," the one "great point of departure" is not recognized, and no healing will or can result. When the professing Christian will meekly and humbly accept the explanation of Christian Science, that man is created in the image and likeness of Spirit and is therefore spiritual and not mortal and material, he will no longer say that he does not understand the healing of Christian Science, but will joyfully prove for himself and for others that he has passed the point of departure where man is supposed to be separated from God. He will get so close to God, good, that he will find in Him everything that is rightfully his by virtue of man's divine inheritance. This will enable him to cross swords with the so called law of material heredity, and to prove that man is not under any such law, but that he is governed wholly by spiritual law,—the law of perfection. Fear will then give place to a realizing sense of God's nearness, and both sin and disease will disappear under the operation of this same spiritual law. Malice and hatred will be supplanted by love and kindness, and the Golden Rule become the only rule of conduct. He will then comprehend the words of the Master, "None of them is lost, but the son of perdition,"—the false, material concept of man,—and the horrors of any future punishment or damnation will vanish. He will then be constantly occupied in contemplating the blessings which God has already bestowed upon His child. Knowing that there is no anger or vengeance in the divine Mind, he knows that these and kindred qualities cannot be expressed through God's child, and this understanding of man's oneness with his Maker gives him authority to enter a scientific mental protest against the instrusion of all such counterfeit thoughts into human consciousness; it also gives him divine authority to nullify in his own thinking the so-called reality and power of evil; and in no other way will he ever be able to overcome evil with good.

Is it any wonder that our Leader refers to this recognition of man's oneness with his creator as "the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth"? Certainly no more desirable or helpful point could possibly be reached in the experience of any Christian believer, for it means nothing less than the opening of the heavenly gates. How could the kingdom of heaven ever be realized so long as man is regarded as a poor miserable sinner, divorced from his Maker and lost or "condemned to eternal perdition"? The students of Christian Science will never be able to find words for an adequate expression of their gratitude for the revelation of that scientific knowledge which explains the divine oneness of God and man and enables them to approach the point of departure where all sense-testimony concerning man is corrected, and "the old man" of the flesh is exchanged for "the new man" in Christ, Truth. Until this point be reached in one's search for Truth, he will stumble and fall in the midst of conflicting theories and opinions, all predicated of the belief in a fallen man and in a God endowed with human attributes.

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