Editorial November 11, 1911 Issue

FOR THE WORK'S SAKE

Archibald McLellan

When Jesus healed the sick on the shores of Galilee, in its towns and villages and by its roadsides, as recorded in the gospels, we can scarcely assume that he did this work simply that the sick might be healed, but rather because it seemed to him a necessary incident in exemplification of the gospel he preached,—a gospel which invariably heals the sick when it is understood and practised.

It would appear, from the great Teacher's primary instruction to the twelve, as he sent them forth on their world-mission, that his chief purpose was to establish in men the knowledge that the kingdom of God was at hand. It was inevitable that this knowledge of the omnipotence and omnipresence of God should destroy error and evil of every name and nature, and that his disciples who had listened to his instructions and had seen him perform those wonderful works of healing in exemplification of the power of Truth to heal from sickness as well as save from sin, should have come to regard the healing of the sick as part and parcel of their work. In other words, Jesus recognized, nor could his disciples fail to perceive, the need for convincing humanity by such works as these that the doctrines he taught, though new and perhaps startling in their departure from the "letter" taught by the scribes and Pharisees, were nevertheless not "vain babblings."

So far as the present need for a convincing presentation of the gospel is concerned, times and people have not changed in the slightest, and in that respect the first century of Christianity and this twentieth century are identical. Mrs. Eddy recognized this parallelism when she wrote: "Jesus proved to perfection, so far as this could be done in that age, what Christian Science is today proving in a small degree,—the falsity of the evidence of the material senses that sin, sickness, and death are sensible claims, and that God substantiates their evidence by knowing their claim" (No and Yes, p. 38).

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