Editorial April 22, 1933 Issue

The Patient's Part in Healing

W. Stuart Booth

IT augurs well for one who appeals to Christian Science for healing of sickness or deliverance from sin, for guidance in business or freedom from any inharmony, if his mental attitude corresponds to that of the suppliant of old who cried, "What must I do to be saved?" It should be noted that he did not say, What will you do for me? but signified a willingness to cooperate, which denoted something more and better than a mere selfish desire to gain his succor and salvation through another's unaided effort. This right mental attitude indicates a condition of thought that is important in healing because it is in line with divine Principle, which nullifies and nothingizes all discord.

Christian Science enables present-day Christians to follow the example of Christ Jesus in healing, even as he promised they could and should. It does this by acquainting them with God, the Father, as Jesus knew Him, and by furnishing a definite rule for right thinking which makes it possible to obey the Bible injunction voiced by Paul, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus." Naturally, having this right-mindedness includes freedom from fear, selfishness, envy, injustice, animality—from whatever is unlike divine Mind, Love. To this end Christian Scientists find it inspiring and profitable to study the words of the master Christian and examine his method of dealing with those who came to him for healing. It is recorded that on several occasions he said to those who had been healed, "Thy faith hath made thee whole." To the blind men who appealed to him for healing he said, "According to your faith be it unto you." And according to the record, "their eyes were opened." The Saviour thereby indicated that, although his faith and spiritual understanding were unbounded, the healing of those who came to him depended in some degree also upon their response through faith to the divine law of perfection which he understood, obeyed, and applied.

Mrs. Eddy pointed out the individual responsibility of each one when she wrote in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 167), "Our proportionate admission of the claims of good or of evil determines the harmony of our existence,—our health, our longevity, and our Christianity." Each individual must guard his own thinking against sin, fear, and the various phases of evil which spring from the false belief in matter as conscious and causative. That responsibility cannot be delegated. A Christian Science practitioner cannot act as porter at the door of his patient's thought, but he can and must keep his own thought so clear, loving, fearless, intuitive, and spiritually dominant that whatever error would hinder the patient's responsiveness to Truth will be detected, and cast out by denial. Coincidently the patient's desire for freedom from evil and discord should be identified aright as a real, positive desire for good. Thus the patient's study and endeavor to think in line with divine Mind constitute an affirmative activity which may be his part in the healing.

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