Article October 31, 1908 Issue

Law defined scientifically is the unvarying recurrence of...

Frederick Dixon

Newbury (Eng.) News

Law defined scientifically is the unvarying recurrence of phenomena, and is expressed perfectly in that verse of the epistle of James which declares, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." It is therefore natural that this epistle should contain the further statement that "faith without works is dead." For faith is but the intial perception of caustion, the accuracy of which is demonstrated in works, so that just in proportion as those works the requirements of law may faith be said to be perfected. In the words of Paul, "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Now that for which man hopes is the kingdom of God, and the evidence of things not seen, that is of spiritual things, is the answer he receives to prayer. James tells us that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him." Paul bade the Thessalonians "pray without ceasing," and a Christian Scientist learns to fulfil this command just as he learns to act on some beautiful words of advice written by Mrs. Eddy: "Keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them" (Christian Science Sentinel, Oct. 6, 1906). Then indeed man attains to the kingdom of heaven, for "the kingdom of God is within you."

It is in the attempt to act up to this teaching that the Christian Scientist becomes a healer of the sick. Passing as he often does hours of the day, many hours of every day, in the presence of sickness and by the bedside of those in pain, he is in little danger of ignoring human suffering; on the contrary, his effort is to destroy it. He does not however, fetter himself, in the midst of the struggle, by insisting that disease and suffering are real, for by real he means that which is spiritual and eternal. In this, however, he does not declare that suffering is not real to human sense. It is because it is terribly real to the human sense, because it has a relative existence in the human consciousness, that he is there to attempt to destroy it; but it is because it is not real in any absolute sense, because it has no place in the divine consciousness or the spiritual universe, that he hopes to bring about its destruction. Nor does it in any way imply that Christian Science places physical before spiritual healing; so far from doing this, it makes physical healing the result of increased spiritual understanding. All that Christian Scientists know of Christian Science they have learned from reading Mrs. Eddy's book "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and as a result the world is to-day the richer by many thousands of happier, healthier, and better men and women, rescued not merely from sorrow and sickness, but from poverty, and misery, and despair, and going out in their turn into the world able to say and to prove to those that meet them, "I know that my redeemer liveth."

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