Article May 31, 1924 Issue

Treatment

WILLIAM DUNCAN KILPATRICK

In every avenue of endeavor successful fruition is the goal to which all honest effort is directed. Especially is this so in the study and practice of Christian Science. Every earnest student of Christian Science is conscientiously working to the end that he may the more readily and easily meet and master the arguments of mortality which daily confront him. Be he practitioner or otherwise, he is constantly striving so to advance in the understanding of the truth of being that the fruits of his labors will be not only many but instantaneous. To heal the sick quickly and completely is a "consummation devoutly to be wished;" and that this consummation may be realized, Christian Scientists are unceasingly directing their efforts to a clear and scientific understanding of what constitutes Christian Science treatment.

Because all fruitage in the experience of a Christian Scientist is the outcome in one way or another of Christianly scientific practice, the importance of a clear perception of what constitutes treatment becomes apparent. A treatment in Christian Science aims at the breaking down of the barriers of wrong thinking and the establishment among men of the fruits of Spirit through right thinking. To attain the scientific understanding in any case, the truth must be established in thought. The understanding of the perfection of God and man must be our aim. If we are striving for a perfect result as a consequence of our work, perfection must be our starting point; hence the necessity of basing all treatment on a clear concept of what God and man are.

In the book of Genesis we learn that man is created in the image and likeness of God. Jesus tells us that "God is a Spirit;" hence the conclusion arrived at by Mrs. Eddy in the "scientific statement of being" in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 468), "Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual." Thus the foundation upon which to build the superstructure of a Christianly scientific treatment is perfect God and perfect man. Perfect God, and man as perfect in degree as his Maker, is the basis from which all our right thinking must proceed. When we realize further that, as we read in Habakkuk, God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil," and cannot "look on iniquity," we have the added assurance that man created in God's image, spiritual and perfect, must remain as eternally perfect as is his creator, and that because God cannot know evil or sickness, man, God's idea, can have no knowledge of sin or mortality. And with this understanding of God and man and of man's relationship to God we proceed in treatment to the elimination of belief in matter and evil.

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Evil is Unreal
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