The Vision of the Practitioner
Jesus said in the allegorical language of the East, "First cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye." Could an illustration be given which would show mortals more clearly the modus operandi by which they would reach the altitude to heal the sick than does this one sentence? Clearly the Master taught that purification of thought results in spiritual growth and that spirituality alone would enable the student to heal the sick; and when Mary Baker Eddy, after demonstrating the power of divine Mind to heal the sick, began cautiously to impart this ability to her students she said, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 411 ): "My first discovery in the student's practice was this: If the student silently called the disease by name, when he argued against it, as a general rule the body would respond more quickly,—just as a person replies more readily when his name is spoken; but this was because the student was not perfectly attuned to divine Science, and needed the arguments of truth for reminders. If Spirit or the power of divine Love bear witness to the truth, this is the ultimatum, the scientific way, and the healing is instantaneous." The spiritual altitude which Jesus had reached enabled him to see man as the image of God and not as presented by physical sense—mortal, sinning, and sick. Then the greatest thing that any person on this earth can do is to gain spirituality. Most Christian Scientists not only admit this as true, but are striving to make every incident of their lives add to their spirituality, and they find that, like turning the snowball in the snow, their very desire for spirituality is a most effectual prayer; that like does attract like and that a spiritual thought brings manna from spiritual sources.
Jesus made a man's ability to heal commensurate with his spiritual understanding, and for that reason the student, while keeping himself as much as possible from compromising with error in any way, strives above all else for spirituality of thought. If the spiritual understanding upon which Jesus rested his demonstration enabled him to see the perfect man, conversely, the farther one got from the purity of this teaching the less ability to heal would he possess; but right at this point must one be patient and charitable, whether the lack of vision is with himself or another. The beginner who needs "the arguments of truth for reminders" may work much harder than a student who sees from a higher spiritual plane, but in the Scriptures we read, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise," and that one who to-day must work or feels that he must, from the standpoint of arguing against the reality of all forms of material law, has no more reason for discouragement than the one who has but started to climb a mountain should have, because he cannot see as correctly the panorama of lakes and plain as the one who has reached a higher elevation. Jesus "was in all points tempted like as we are" and the suggestion of limitation came to him to be destroyed just as it has come to us. However, we must watch lest we be satisfied with an occasional demonstration and fail to prepare ourselves against the greater demands that will certainly come upon us as they did to Jesus' immediate disciples when they failed to heal the epileptic boy and were told that their failure was the result of their unbelief.
If we are guiding a child's growth we are very careful to avoid anything that might suggest an impure or sensual thought, a dishonest or untruthful motive; so in our spiritual growth, our mental food must be pure. As we read in Matthew: "Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old." Every line of mental activity is an education out of the limitation of mortal mind; music, mechanics, mathematics, show that it is only by practicing painstakingly the right that we overcome the wrong. The vision of the child student of mathematics is not the vision of the school graduate; but there is absolutely no ground at any time for criticism. Correction? Yes. Encouragement, loving helpfulness? Yes. But there is no place in the thought of a spiritual thinker for mere human criticism, malice, prophesying failure, or self-gratulation.
The student who is looking in mortal mind for a cause and delving in the speculative as to the history of discord needs to be lovingly led to see that Principle alone is activity. The one who is playing upon words by thinking that "hard thoughts cause gallstones" or that "cold thoughts cause influenza" needs to be shown that such parodies on Christian Science should be left in the barren soil of nothingness from which they come, and never watered with the fear of childish belief; but better the effort to heal even from such extremes as this, than the pharisaical dry rot of self-complacency. Whenever the student ceases to progress he has ceased to follow what Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 233 ): "Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power. These proofs consist solely in the destruction of sin, sickness, and death by the power of Spirit, as Jesus destroyed them. This is an element of progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil."
