Article May 31, 1913 Issue

ABSENT TREATMENT

LEWIS HENRY BEESLEY.

On page 78 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" Mrs. Eddy says, "If Spirit pervades all space, it needs no material method for the transmission of messages," and in that wonderful chapter on Physiology she also says, "Science can heal the sick, who are absent from their healers, as well as those present, since space is no obstacle to Mind" (p. 179). In thus doing away with the necessity for any personal presence and in establishing the possibility of a healing method which requires no material aid, Mrs. Eddy has enabled mankind to be conscious of a God at hand, and one who is "a very present help in trouble." Perhaps this has been one of the greatest factors in the spread of Christian Science, because it has taught its students that they can get help in whatever place they are; be they ever so far from other Christian Scientists, the need can always be met.

Christ Jesus exhibited this power in many instances, thus demonstrating for all mankind the ubiquity of the all-knowing, all-loving Mind. In spite of the distance which the nobleman had traveled to get to Jesus, when he returned he found his son healed, as Jesus said he would; and the same result followed in the case of the centurion's servant. We have learned anew through Christian Science that God is ever present and never absent, and since it is God alone who does the healing work, there is, in an important sense, no such thing as absent treatment, because the power behind the treatment is ever present. Christian Scientists who are beginners in this study, and who are desirous of taking treatment, would do well to remember that, though they may be absent from the practitioner, who is merely the channel for the healing, they may be assured that wherever they are, God, divine Truth and Love, is, never failing, never absent, and it does not matter how far they are from the practitioner.

All treatment may be thought of as present treatment, since the result is brought about by the presence of God, and this knowledge drives away from consciousness all thought of the personality of the practitioner, of his or her power to do anything, or of any state of absence. In some instances practitioners have found that better work can be done when the patient is not seen at all, and we frequently read in the testimonies in our periodicals of wonderful cases of healing without practitioner and patient having ever met. This is undoubtedly, due to the fact that the practitioner's knowledge of an all-powerful, ever-present God is uncontaminated by any mental picture of the patient's physical condition, and he is thereby enabled straightway to realize man's sonship with God. In the twenty-third chapter of Jeremiah we read, "Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?" and with the psalmit we can reply, "Thou understandest my thought afar off ... and art acquainted with all my ways."

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