Editorial October 25, 1919 Issue

Symptoms of Recovery

William P. McKenzie

THE man whom sickness assails is tempted to recount his symptoms and inquire of some authority what particular disease they may indicate. Then his medical adviser turns over page by page his mental pictures of disease until that one is found from which he can name his patient's trouble. Now the patient may have thought that perhaps he would find easement as soon as he knew this particular name, but he actually finds that with the name goes a series of laws or settled beliefs which are supposed to constitute a program for him. He is, as it were, put in prison and must pay the price of such and such a round of suffering, of so many days or weeks of confinement, before he can go free.

In one of her addresses Mrs. Eddy makes answer to the question, "How is the healing done in Christian Science?" by saying (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 96): "It is not one mind acting upon another mind; it is not the transference of human images of thought to other minds; it is not supported by the evidence before the personal senses,—Science contradicts this evidence; it is not of the flesh, but of the Spirit. It is Christ come to destroy the power of the flesh; it is Truth over error; that understood, gives man ability to rise above the evidence of the senses, take hold of the eternal energies of Truth, and destroy mortal discord with immortal harmony,—the grand verities of being."

Were we to accept the diagnosis of the world's condition from the symptoms reported in the sensational press, and listen to the prophets who lay out a program of continued illness, then the heart might fail. The story comes from many lands of the impatient ravages of arrogant self-will, of vexatious persecutions of the honest and conscientious, of riot, larceny, and lynching, of broken truce and violated oath, and therefore we find what our Master spoke of, "Men's hearts failing them for fear." But he who was the great Physician said to his disciples concerning these things, "When ye shall hear of wars and commotions, be not terrified: for these things must first come to pass; but the end is not by and by." Then speaking of the persecutions out of which they would be delivered he said: "There shall not an hair of your head perish. In your patience possess ye your souls."

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