Article April 6, 1918 Issue

Prayer in Christian Science is not so much a pleading...

Peter V. Ross

Watsonville (Cal.) Register

Prayer in Christian Science is not so much a pleading with God for favors as it is an understanding that already He has bestowed upon us all things good and needful; it is to realize the all-presence and the all-power of God, which of necessity destroys the human sense of sickness and sorrow as well as of sin, and thereby awakens the individual to the discernment that instead of being a helpless victim of evil and disease he has power and domination over them. Thus prayer is made practically effective in better health and morals.

Christian Science not only accepts the apostle's assurance that "the effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much," but it also lays hold of his further promise that "the prayer of faith shall save the sick." The clergyman refers only to the first of these Scriptural promises, and proceeds to tell how the captain of a vessel at sea who, when overtaken with ptomaine poisoning, was saved by a prescription sent by a physician in response to an S.O.S. call. How much more instructive, as showing the power of prayer, was Paul's experience when he was shipwrecked and bitten by the venomous viper? He sent out no S.O.S., asked for no medical prescription, and relied on no medicine chest. He simply applied his knowledge of the Science of Christianity to the wound which threatened his life, and no harm came to him, much to the surprise of the barbarians on the island.

Christian Scientists are finding that this same Science which Jesus and his apostles invoked to heal disease is available to every one to-day who chooses to gain an understanding of it through the study of the Bible. As Mrs. Eddy has well said on page 162 of Science and Health: "Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness." Christian Science, its students understand, is nothing more nor less than original Christianity as taught by the Master and put in practice, healing sickness and overcoming other conditions opposed to the happiness and well-being of humanity.

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