Article June 15, 1907 Issue

THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

LEWIS R. WORKS.

To those who have experienced the beneficent effects of Christian Science no other evidence of its Divine origin is necessary, but to others something in the nature of proof may be offered. To such proofs, happily, the world is daily becoming more ready to listen. Those who were formerly indifferent begin to lift their eyes to the "signs of the times," and the army of actual inquirers becomes daily more numerous in its impressive array. Such a state of affairs is not to be wondered at. If men can say in an inventive age, as they do today, that to the genius of man nothing seems impossible, how much more readily should they agree and know that "with God all things are possible." Such is the Scriptural declaration, and to the Christian Scientist it has become more than mere words. In the light of the undeniable truth of the assertion, the Scientist is likely to forget that his understanding is recent, and to wonder at those who occupy the ground where he so lately stood. He wonders at the necessity for the use of the word "proof" in connection with a statement which is of the very essence of established truth.

For many years it was vehemently contended that no healings had been effected through Christian Science, and the contention, in the light of history, was not remarkable; for history itself is of the nature of a story of the struggles of every cause which had in it a fundamental truth making for either the spiritual or material advancement and welfare of the world. The one great example of this fact is furnished in the beautiful but saddening accounts of the earthly sojourn of the Master, and instances in the material realm might be recited in great number. In the passage of time the denials of the healing efficacy of Christian Science have become less and less persistent, and have now practically ceased. If they are still occasionally heard, they come either from those who are not honest with themselves or from those who happen not to have been brought into contact with actual cases of healing and are not willing to accept hearsay testimony on the subject. Every Christian Scientist knows, as he knows the stability of adamantime truth,—and his knowledge is a part of that truth,—that the healings are daily and hourly effected. Christian Science has healed all of the admittedly curable and nearly if not all of the supposedly incurable ailments in the catalogue of materia medica. Many ministers of the gospel have resigned their pulpits and many physicians have given up their professions to become Christian Scientists because of their knowledge of these manifestations of God's law, and it may be safely asserted that the world at large knows, even if there be isolated instances of the lack of that knowledge, that Christian Science does heal. But how does it heal?

In answering this question it is not intended to try to explain the modus operandi of Christian Science healing. It is sufficient to say that the work is done through that Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus." If the healing is not so effected it is not effected at all, because the Christian Scientist relies upon nothing but that Mind, the omnipotent God. He knows that God is omnipotent. The Christian Scientist's God is a God of action, and His acts are those which even a mere human being, erroneous though his views may often be, has a right to expect from a God who is Love and who is good. The Christian Scientist's God is not a God who "taketh away;" He is not a God to whom, in a time of distress and affliction, men are servilely to bow down and murmur, "Thy will be done," believing that the distress and affliction express His will; but He is a God who saves and who heals, a God who commits neither wrong nor injustice toward His children, who knows no evil and does not afflict. He is a God whose will is "done in earth as it is in heaven;" who has no other will but that which is made manifest in the undisputed reign of good. The Christian Scientist knows no other method of healing than the application of these eternal and unerring truths. He knows, and to the exclusion of all else seeks to practise, the truth that "the prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love" (Science and Health, p. 1). He knows that "to those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings" (Science and Health, Pref. p. vii.), and he is a joyous partaker of those blessings.

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