Article September 9, 1911 Issue

In discussing the question of payment for mental healing,...

Frederick Dixon—London, Eng.

World's Work

In discussing the question of payment for mental healing, I have no intention of dealing with the whole ground covered by Clifford Howard in his article in your issue for May. I have neither the knowledge of the practice of the various bodies to which he refers, nor would it be in any way possible or desirable that I should discuss the facts were I in possession of them. The present inquiry must be confined solely to the method pursued in Christian Science practice.

In 1866 Mrs. Eddy discovered the Principle of the Christ-healing and withdrew herself from the world and spent three years, with the Bible as her only text-book, in the endeavor to fathom the inner meaning of the gospel message. Gradually, as she succeeded in her task, the vastness of Christian healing opened before her in all its overwhelming grandeur, and she saw that she was learning not merely a new method of healing the sick, but a new law, or, to be more exact, that old law through the operation of which spiritual harmony was maintained. An understanding of this law she recognized was a necessary prelude to demonstration, just as through demonstration its reliability could be tested. For this reason, while she was making the necessary demonstration, she withheld the publication of her book, with the result that when the book appeared later on, it was not as a mere contribution to religious ethics, but as the text-book of Christian Science, the truth of which had been already proved through actual demonstration.

Almost two thousand years before, the Galilean Prophet had come preaching to the world that wonderful message summed up in the ever recurring phrase, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Now, the word translated "repent" means literally something causing a conviction afterward, and so a change of mind. When, therefore, a man changes his mind from a belief in physical law, with its warp of horrors and inharmonies, into an understanding of spiritual law, with its perpetual harmonious effects, he finds that the kingdom of heaven is indeed at hand, for "the kingdom of God is within you." In order, however, that the world might gain the benefits of the operation of spiritual law, it was necessary that the law should be explained. For this purpose, consequently, Mrs. Eddy founded the Massachusetts Metaphysical College, under a charter granted to her by the state, for the teaching of Christian Science.

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