Spiritual Healing

Albert F. Gilmore

One of the first steps taken by our Leader in preparation for the dissemination of Christian Science was to establish its healing power, beyond the possibility of refutation; for she fully realized that without proof, her teachings, revolutionary to a startling degree as they were, would make scant headway against the established teachings of theology and medicine, strongly intrenched in vested rights and ancient customs reinforced by the prejudice and inertia of the human mind. From the first, Mrs. Eddy's claims as to the healing power of Christian Science were emphatically denied by an unbelieving world, accustomed only to material methods. "The age of miracles has passed," asserted an army of doubters: "The injunctions of Jesus to heal the sick, cleanse the leper, and raise the dead," they insisted, "were applicable only at a definite time and for a limited number of persons"—his immediate disciples and students; "Such claims are contrary to reason and experience"! These and other objections were made to her assertions as to the power of the Christ, Truth, to heal and regenerate mankind.

That the thought of mankind, which is not based upon divine Principle, is as unstable as shifting sands, has rarely had better exemplification than in its change of attitude toward Christian Science. At first flatly denying the visible signs, it has reluctantly and by slow degrees passed through all the intermediate stages of opposition, until now, still protesting, it is driven by the completeness of proof to accept the well-established facts of the demonstrable power of Truth to heal, which Mrs. Eddy claimed from the beginning. Moreover in place of the former disbelief, it is now sometimes erroneously said that Christian Science places too much emphasis upon the healing of disease, to the neglect of that spiritual growth which, it is held, constitutes the chief aim of religion.

Examination of the Scriptural record, however casual, will convince one of the prominence which the healing of disease occupied throughout the ministry of Christ Jesus. His demonstrations of the power of spiritual law to supersede the generally accepted material laws to their complete nullification, were confined, except in destroying disease—so far as the Scriptural records go—to comparatively few instances and to meet some specific need. The turning of the water into wine, stilling of the tempest, walking on the sea, even the feeding of the multitudes, tremendous in import as they were in demonstrating the great fact that divine law governs the universe, seem incidental in comparison with his almost constant ministry of healing the sick. May we not also reasonably conclude that these healings covered practically every type of disease known to mankind at that period; for not only the individual but the multitude, suffering we may be sure from a great variety of afflictions, found healing through his demonstration of the all-power of God, which was equal to the destruction of evil's every claim.

Great as was the Master's compassion, manifested in a tenderness unequaled in human experience, he made it perfectly clear that the prime necessity for the salvation of mankind is to establish the fact of God's presence, power, and availability to dispel the dark shadows of materiality in whatsoever form manifested. Of the Savior's mission Mrs. Eddy states with perfect clarity in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 54): "In witness of his divine commission, he presented the proof that Life, Truth, and Love heal the sick and the sinning, and triumph over death through Mind, not matter." And she further says of the meaning of his matchless career (Science and Health, p. 25): "The divinity of the Christ was made manifest in the humanity of Jesus."

Truth is permanent, eternal, and its lightest imprint upon human thought is indelible. It will do its work at the time and in the way of God's appointing, and the true healing process will unfold, "for they shall be all taught of God." The first impulse which springs spontaneously from a thankful heart is gratitude for relief. The deeper rejoicing, which results from the experience of spiritual illumination, less outward and obvious, may less readily find vocal expression. A first step out of materiality is to gain the understanding of health as spiritual well-being which finds expression in physical harmony. Christian Science finds one wherever he may be and heals him where he is. It teaches that to be a Christian, is so to live in the presence of divine Love as to manifest its attributes.

Albert F. Gilmore.

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"Rest in the Lord"

February 25, 1922

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