Article October 29, 1932 Issue

In your issue of April 18 you publish an excerpt from a...

Harry B. Bonney, Committee on Publication for the State of Tennessee,—Memphis

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In your issue of April 18 you publish an excerpt from a sermon in which the clergyman states that "there is a tremendous lot of fanaticism about this healing by prayer and faith," and questions God's willingness to heal men of sickness directly, but states that in some way He does heal through material methods indirectly.

He also makes the astounding statement that "God has to be careful with His ordinary benevolences every day," indicating a belief that there is a limit to God, infinite good, and that it is necessary for God to conserve His benevolences and deal them out sparingly. If this is the "whole philosophy and program of the universe" that this clergyman fears would be upset if God should fulfill His promises to heal the sick directly in answer to "the prayer of faith" (spiritual understanding) his fears will be realized, because Christian Science is destroying such erroneous beliefs by demonstrating that, as Mrs. Eddy states, "God will heal the sick through man, whenever man is governed by God" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 495); and God governs through spiritual laws, not matter.

The Bible has so many promises and examples of God's forgiveness of sin and His healing of disease directly that it would hardly seem necessary to call them to the attention of one who professes to understand the Bible sufficiently to teach it. One could never imagine Christ Jesus advising any of the sick and weary who came to him for help to seek material methods. He healed them all instantly through his understanding of the true nature of God and man's relationship to Him, and said that those who believed on him (understood him) should do the same thing. In his command to the apostles and the seventy disciples to go into the world and preach the gospel and heal the sick he did not authorize them to substitute material remedies for spiritual understanding and power, and he did not relieve them of the responsibility of proving their words by the "signs following."

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