Article May 16, 1936 Issue

The Healing Rebuke

HELEN WOOD BAUMAN

The design of Christian Science is to heal the sick and to destroy sin. Its methods are constructive, helpful, spiritualizing. Love alone motivates the spiritually scientific rebuke, and only Love can supply the wisdom and discretion necessary for the effectual rebuke. The sole intent of a Love-inspired rebuke is to cause error to be seen as unreal, and so destroyed. The recognition of the nature of evil seals its doom; for when evil is seen as a lie, a delusion—error—it gives up, so to speak, and disappears from the enlightened consciousness.

The individual who feels impelled to administer a rebuke should be very sure that Love has inspired his impulse; that he seeks to heal, not to humiliate. He should be convinced of the unreality of the seeming error before he endeavors to uncover it in another. He should think in strict accord with our Leader's statement (Science and Health, p. 250), "Whatever appears to be a mortal man is a mortal dream." If he has not attained this assurance, the administering of rebuke may result in a mere contention of beliefs. If he has attained it, he generally finds that the voicing of some impersonal word of truth accomplishes the desired healing, and that no bitter wake of resentment or chagrin remains. Often he will find that a silent realization of spiritual facts is sufficient to cause the seeming evil to fade from thought.

A young student of Christian Science was once tempted to resent another's selfishness toward her. Suddenly arrested in an impulse to plan a sharp, retaliating rebuke, she realized that she must turn to the source of all wisdom and intelligence, the one loving Father, who supplies every helpful idea necessary to bring about a healing. She soon forgot the incident, and when she next met the offender, she found her consciousness suddenly flooded with an overwhelming wave of affection and tenderness. At once she recalled her appeal for wisdom, and realized that the loving Principle of all creation had not failed to answer her prayer. The offense was never again repeated, and the experience taught her a treasured lesson in the spiritually corrective method of Christian Science.

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