Article August 14, 1915 Issue

It is not contended for Christian Science that the healing...

Frank Bell—North East, Pa.

The Sun

It is not contended for Christian Science that the healing through its method is miraculous in the usual sense of that term. On the contrary, it is held to be the result of perfectly natural means, available to all who will give the subject the open-minded study and earnest application essential to the practical understanding thereof.

Christian Science healing may be said to be due to the operation of divinely natural spiritual law, which is demonstrably operative for good in proportion as the obstructive qualities of human thought are overcome. The process is essentially religious, and Christian Science is in the first place a religion. Those who are regenerated mentally or spiritually through Christian Science, find as a rule that the healing of disease or some other inharmonious condition is the incidental result. "Mind over matter," therefore, does not properly describe this process, because a mere human mind influence may be as readily exerted for an irreligious as for a religious purpose, and does not necessarily involve any moral element whatever.

Whether the most enlightened persons are those who in time of sickness turn to material rather than spiritual means, is dependent on the point of view. Preponderance of numbers on one side is not an infallible guide, and even if it were, the verdict might shortly be reversed, for a distinguished speaker at a recent medical gathering in this country estimated that ten million persons in the United States do not call the medical doctor when sick, and the growth of Christian Science has been such that, with a continuance at the same ratio, the time cannot be far off when in many communities its adherents will be no longer in the minority. In any city or town where Christian Science is well established it will probably be found that Christian Scientists will compare favorably with members of other denominations in the matter of intelligence. It will be found also that a large proportion of these have been healed through Christian Science of diseases of all kinds, from which they had failed to obtain relief through other methods.

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