Article October 14, 1933 Issue

In a recent issue of your paper a clergyman of your city...

W. Truman Green,

St. Petersburg Times

In a recent issue of your paper a clergyman of your city states in substance that he believes the healings recorded in the New Testament and in Christian Science result through the application of a powerful will; and that suggestion is a common factor in the healing method.

Reforming the sinner and healing the sick were one and the same with Christ Jesus, who in speaking of his ministry said, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." Surely it was not God's will that His beloved Son should be compelled to resort to a kind of witchcraft through employing a powerful will, or a form of mesmeric suggestion, in order to heal "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." Neither was it God's will that Jesus should instruct his twelve disciples, and his other seventy also, in the exercise of human will or any form of suggestion in order that they might obey his command to heal both the sick and the sinning. It is evident that the Master's instructions to this disciples consisted in his imparting to them a true knowledge of God, of man, and of man's true relation to God; and also in instructing his disciples and imparting to them an understanding of spiritual law, its availability, its application, and its operation.

On page 144 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "Willing the sick to recover is not the metaphysical practice of Christian Science, but is sheer animal magnetism. Human will-power may infringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the realism of being." All who understand the teaching of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick and to reform the sinner through its ministration, well know that neither human will-power nor suggestion is employed in its legitimate practice.

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