Article September 30, 1922 Issue

A critic, writing in a recent issue of your paper, states...

Richard E. Prince, Committee on Publication for the State of Virginia,

Petersburg Progress and Index-Appeal

A critic, writing in a recent issue of your paper, states that Jesus did not teach any science of mental healing, and that he assumed physicians were able to heal. A careful study of the gospels would not indicate that this was the case. Jesus never recommended surgery, hygiene, or medical treatment of any kind; and we find him doing in his day what Christian Science is also doing to-day in an ever increasing degree, taking cases which the doctors had pronounced incurable and healing them. We read in Mark's gospel of the woman who "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." When she came to Jesus his pure thought detected her unspoken prayer for help and healed her. We also may read in both Matthew's and Luke's gospel of the centurion's servant, who was healed by Jesus through absent mental treatment. The "laying on of . . . hands" was an old Hebrew custom, symbolizing the putting forth of power. "Hand" is often used in the Bible when referring to spiritual power; thus, "the hand of God;" but we have no record of Jesus using any form of manipulation, nor of his anointing with oil. We do read in John's gospel where he spat upon the ground and anointed the eyes of the man who was blind from his birth; but no intelligent person for a moment believes there was any healing virtue in this act, nor that it was necessary for Jesus to do it in order to heal the man. Spitting was the Hebrew method of expressing the utmost contempt; and Jesus was evidently showing to the bystanders his contempt for matter as a healing agency.

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