Article August 10, 1929 Issue

In an account of a Rotary Club meeting which appeared...

Francis Lyster Jandron, Committee on Publication for the State of Michigan,

Midland Republican

In an account of a Rotary Club meeting which appeared in a recent issue of the Midland Republican, a physican described Christian Science as "an exponent of wills." I should like to correct the impression that the use of will-power, or suggestion, is a healing factor in Christian Science. On the contrary, the healing efficacy of Christian Science results from Mrs. Eddy's discovery that health and harmony are natural and in accord with the divine Principle of man's being, while sickness and discord are not.

Human will or desire is a poor substitute for an understanding of mathematics in solving a problem in numbers. Man's spiritual nature, which includes health and well-being, is governed by God as unerringly as numbers are governed by mathematical law. And an understanding of his realtionship to the infinitely good God enables man to find the way out of sickness. Christian Science heals every form of sickness, and it does this by correcting the supposition that evil is powerful. When one who is sick perceives understandingly that he has been mistake in attributing to sickness the power of law, then sickness begins to lose its hold on him, and he recovers. To an outsider this may seem like the practice of will-power, only because mankind have been so thoroughly educated to give their consent to disease that a mighty effort of will appears to them necessary to even a feeble protest.

In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy has fully exposed the falsity that will-power can be used to promote health or righteousness; and on page 446 she writes: "Not human platitudes, but divine beatitudes, reflect the spiritual light and might which heal the sick. The exercise of will brings on a hypnotic state, detrimental to health and integrity of thought. This must therefore be watched and guarded against."

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