Article November 12, 1910 Issue

There are in the world today thousands of practitioners,...

A. W. Le Messurier

Guernsey (Channel Islands) Press

There are in the world today thousands of practitioners, and the healing work of Christian Science proceeds apace, yet the cases of failure are relatively few. It should be remembered that the "last enemy" to be overcome is death, though the Founder of Christianity definitely stated that "whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die," and proceeded to furnish the proof in his own resurrection and ascension. This same Founder taught his followers in all ages that healing the sick was included in preaching the gospel, and that his method of doing both was the only possible method. He never discriminated—never once said that blindness could be cured by the operation of God's ever present spiritual law, but that "tuberculosis of the knee" could not. The world is steadily rising from the condition of unbelief which has hindered success and been its own undoing.

Now while, of course, divine Truth cannot fail, no practitioner of Christian Science claims to have reached the state where failure is impossible. The example of the early disciples' failure and Jesus' answer is too well known to quote. So any failure on the part of Christian Scientists to heal with the same degree of success as the Master did is no proof that God's power is not equal to the case, but, rather, that a greater understanding of that power is needed.

If a Christian Scientist fails (and the majority of patients come for help only as a last resort), an inquest is held and these cases are held up to the fierce fires of criticism, yet how seldom, comparatively, does the need for an inquest arise. Sir Victor Horsley has admitted that if there were inquests on all the patients who die after operations, there would be ten thousand of these inquests in London in a year. In their efforts to benefit humanity medical men do not hide the fact that their work is experimental and they are often called upon to bear the grief of having failed after conscientiously doing their best.

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