Article May 29, 1909 Issue

WHY AND WHEN

FRANK B. HOMANS

Sometimes those who come to the Christian Science practitioner for treatment ask him: "Do you think you can cure me?" "How long will it take to heal me?" Such questions are perhaps quite natural, but the practitioner has learned that the doubt and limitation thus expressed do not aid in the work to be done. These inquiries can, however, be easily answered, as the mooted point can be referred to God, who is the healer of all diseases. Again, when a case is not promptly met and the trouble cast out, it is sometimes asked, "Why do I not get healed, as well as my neighbor, who had a similar trouble and was healed in a few days?"

We find that a similar query was addressed to Jesus, after he had been in the mount of transfiguration with three of his disciples. When he came down, a certain man met him and prayed him to heal his son, who was a lunatic. The disciples had worked on the case and failed to effect a cure, but Jesus said to them, "O faithless and perverse generation," and instantly he healed the boy. When the disciples afterward questioned Jesus as to why they had not been able to do this, he said, "Because of your unbelief;" and later on he told them, "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." While this answer is convincing, the question Why? may still confront the practitioner. It is possible that he may have had a case similar to one with which he is now unsuccessfully struggling, and which was healed very shortly. He may feel that he is working as faithfully on the present case as he did on the more successful one, and in his own heart he too may ask, "Why?"

There could be several reasons advanced to explain this seeming mystery. The first patient may have been very simple, childlike, and receptive to the truth, while the other may have repelled the truth which the Scientist tried to impart, concealing the error which the practitioner was seeking to uncover and destroy. On page 457 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says: "To pursue other vocations and advance rapidly in the demonstration of this Science, is not possible;" hence, a practitioner who divides his time between healing and business pursuits may successfully treat one seemingly difficult case, yet not succeed in a similar one, because the latter required more "prayer and fasting" than the former. Again, even as Jesus' disciples lacked his spirituality and failed to heal the lunatic, so a practitioner may, from lack of spirituality,—"because of [his] unbelief,"—sometimes fail to heal his patients.

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