Article January 29, 1916 Issue

A Great Discovery

ROBERT O. CAMPBELL

The vast number of material remedies proposed as cures for the ills of mankind, and the many material antidotes in use which are relied on to destroy disease, enable any one to realize that at the time Christian Science was discovered, healing by spiritual means was practically lost to the world. The restoration of sufficient faith to practise healing successfully by the method of primitive Christianity, became possible only through a sufficiently clear apprehension of the Christ-teaching to prove the Scripture statements true. Without this demonstrated faith the authority with which the Master taught would have been lacking. Unless the science of his teaching and practice had been discovered, the ability to state the healing system would not have been present. The discovery was accomplished because the essential spiritual illumination was gained, and disbelief in the human consciousness was thus powerless to prevent Mrs. Eddy from giving her message to the world.

The concept of man as perfect and immortal, the image and likeness of a perfect God, must have been prominent as a fact in the understanding of the primitive Christians. It was in harmony with Jesus' command, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Again, Jesus declared one day at Cæsarea Philippi that Simon Bar-jona was blessed because not flesh and blood but the "Father which is in heaven" had revealed to him that the Christ was "the Son of the living God," and the church of Christ was founded on the spiritual foundation of man's sonship with God. To establish a church which would restore the healing element, it was necessary to have the same foundation. The Master's understanding of man as spiritual and perfect, inseparable from the Father, must again be demonstrated to restore a system of healing by spiritual means alone.

The lack of dependence on spiritual understanding in the healing practise of modern times, compared with the faith in God demonstrated in the events recorded during the years of Jesus' ministry, gives impressive evidence of how far astray those who were involved in the effort to commemorate the word and works of the Master had wandered from a provable basis. The words uttered, as recorded in the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Matthew, and the palpable proof of their practicality chronicled in the eight succeeding chapters, mark the way. They combine in unimpeachable testimony of a spiritual way. They leave no doubt of the word and works to be commemorated in Christianity.

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