The Word "Impersonal"

It should be significant to every student of Christian Science that the word "impersonal" does not occur in the Christian Science text-book. Therefore, if this word is used at all in connection with the practice of Christian Science, it deserves to be closely scrutinized. Has it any place in a correct description of that practice? Can we speak of impersonal healing, for example? This expression, "impersonal healing," does not occur in any of the published writings of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. A little examination will show that at least two persons are always requisite in the modus operandi of healing. There is at least some one to bring the healing and some one to receive it, and as a matter of practical experience there may be many persons contributing to the final healing. All the activities of the Christian Science church are founded upon the recognition that the Christ, Truth, comes to save and to heal persons, to induce them to reject some of the materiality associated with the term person and to accept the spiritual qualities characteristic of the man of God's making. The process involves the coming of Spirit to the flesh, of divinity to humanity, of the absolute to the relative.

Suppose a case of healing to which the term "impersonal" may seem applicable upon first consideration, namely, that of a sinner, or a sick man, or of some one bowed down by grief, who attends a Christian Science service and is healed of his besetting sin or disease or grief. He goes away from that service and tells no man, and no man knows of his healing. Is his healing therefore impersonal? There was in the first place his own person which needed to be healed, then there were the persons denominated as readers who announced the healing Truth, and there may have been other persons connected with the service who contributed to the splendid result. Or, take one of those frequent cases in which a person is healed at a Christian Science lecture. Can it be said of such a case that it is impersonal healing, when the person of the one healed and the person of the lecturer were both connected with the case? Every saving and healing article which appears in the Christian Science periodicals is written by some one. Every correction of a misconception of Christian Science which may appear in the public press is made by some one. The patient goes to a practitioner and the pupil to a teacher. A librarian has charge of the Christian Science reading-room.

But far transcending these examples in importance is the fact that Christian Science itself came to Mary Baker Eddy. Some one was found sufficiently prepared, pure enough, and morally courageous enough, to receive the revelation of Christian Science and to place it on a sure basis by giving it to the world in the form of a book the text of which does not once contain the word "impersonal." Mrs. Eddy writes in that book, "It may be said, however, that the term Christian Science relates especially to Science as applied to humanity" (Science and Health, p. 127) ; and in her latest work, entitled "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany," she considers it necessary to warn her followers against "the introduction of pure abstractions into Christian Science without their correlatives" (p. 218). Indeed the attempt to practise Christian Science without making an application of it would necessarily be futile. Christian Science is neither theoretical nor academic; it is practical. It requires both a subject and an object in order to be effective.

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Editorial
Charity
July 8, 1916
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