Editorial February 6, 1909 Issue

WHAT DOES THE WORK?

Annie M. Knott

The crucial question for those who are sufficiently interested in Christian Science to investigate its teachings, naturally is, What does the work? With few exceptions, interest has been aroused by some notable case of healing, hence the inquiry; hence, too, the answer, that it is the truth which does the healing,—which makes free,—as Christ Jesus so long ago said it would. At this point it is well to remember that if the great Teacher had assigned some other basis to his healing work than the action of the truth, had he offered some one of the religio-philosophical theories of the time, he would doubtless have been listened to without the opposition and wrath expressed when he said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." Here was a direct implication that these theories were not the truth, and doubtless his questioners became quickly aware that if Jesus' teachings were accepted as the truth, all beliefs contrary to them would tumble to the ground like a child's house of cards.

Tremendous were the issues involved in Jesus' declaration of what constitutes the truth, but he resolutely maintained his position, offering the only logical deduction to his premise in the declaration, "If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death." In answer to this opponents had only one argument,—the natural outcome of material belief,—they took up stones to cast at him; but he went on his way, pausing long enough, however, to give yet another evidence that his words were the truth, when he healed a man who had been blind from his birth.

When Mrs. Eddy made her great discovery she took her stand by the statement that the truth heals, and that nothing less can heal the sick or do the works of Christ Jesus. She also declared that the truth of being is spiritual, never material, and although she has greatly elaborated her early teaching she has never changed her position with respect to the truth, but like the Master she has maintained that though heaven and earth pass, the truth itself is changeless. With its usual inconsistency, the human mind, while claiming to seek the truth, turns away from it to something which it names "suggestion." It fails it to see that if the suggestion were even based upon the truth, any good result should be attributed to the truth and not to a confessedly faulty human device. The difficulty is, however, that the human mind fails to distinguish between truth and error. It declares disease to be true, even while suggesting to a patient that he is healthy. As Mrs. Eddy has said, again and again, if disease were true we could not destroy it and should never attempt to do so. If it is not true, then the truth must destroy it and nothing less than the truth can do this. Jesus said, when urging the claims of Truth, "I speak that which I have seen with my Father:... But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth." He could never have seen either sin or disease with the Father, therefore they were not true.

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