Editorial October 21, 1922 Issue

Healing To-day

Albert F. Gilmore

Two of the most important and explicit commands of Christ Jesus were: "Preach the gospel," and, "Heal the sick." The Christian Church, founded upon both the teachings and the practical demonstrations of the Nazarene Prophet, strange to say, after the early centuries of the Christian era, continued to obey but one of these admonitions, practically abandoning the other; and since those early days it has conceived its mission to be fulfilled in carrying the gospel of Christ Jesus to the benighted of every land. But that gospel, be it noted, has pertained chiefly to the redemption of the sinful; for the Church has ever been eager and zealous to follow in the footsteps of the Apostle to the Gentiles, in order that its ministry of salvation should reach the so-called heathen peoples of earth.

The recent adoption by the House of Bishops of the Protestant Episcopal Church of a plan to establish healing by prayer, as a part of its ministry, is a most significant recognition of its obligations to fulfill both these commands of Jesus. This action will appeal especially to Christian Scientists as an indorsement of the claims of Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, as to the practicality of spiritual healing, as well as to the duty of the Christian Church to heal the sick no less than to redeem the sinful.

Christian Scientists, however, will not be confused or misled as to the direction this effort has taken. Permission is granted in the order for clergy and lay members of that denomination, who believe that they possess powers of healing, to prepare themselves by "care and prayer and theological and medical study for their proper and safe exercise." But the stipulation is made that those who are to practice healing shall do so only "after due consideration of their Bishop and in sympathetic conference with qualified Christian physicians." Here, manifestly, is a divided allegiance, a situation, it seems, wholly contrary to the teachings of Christ Jesus, and accordingly of Christian Science; for upon no phase of her teaching did Mrs. Eddy place greater emphasis than the necessity of full reliance upon God, as the healer of all the ills of mankind. Under the marginal heading, "Half-way success," in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 167), Mrs. Eddy says: "The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way;" and she adds, "Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized."

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