Article July 10, 1937 Issue

It is a pleasure to be with you this evening at your kind...

Extracts from n address by William G. Biederman,—Washington, District of Columbia, on March 24, 1937

It is a pleasure to be with you this evening at your kind invitation to give you such information as I may with reference to Christian Science, its background, inception, and history. In Christian Science the element of spiritual healing is emphasized in our religious practice and precept, and justly so. In healing the sick through prayer or spiritual means, without the application of any material remedy, we are following the example of our Way-shower, Christ Jesus. The Master healed the sick and raised the dead through dependence upon his heavenly Father alone. He did not use hypnotism or mesmerism, which involves the use of one human mind to master another, but his understanding of the divine Mind, God, of which Paul spoke when he said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."

Three distinct cases in the experience of Jesus are recorded where those he healed were absent. One is the healing of the nobleman's son. Another is the healing of the centurion's servant of the palsy. The third is the healing of the daughter of the Syrophenician woman. A perusal of the record of these healings shows that not only were these sick people at some distance from the Master at the time of their healing, but that they were all healed instantaneously. In each case it is shown that the time of the healing was the time Jesus made his declaration that the patient was well.

The healing of physical ills is not the ultimate purpose of Christian Science. The purpose of this Science is to destroy the sins of the world, that is, to eliminate evil or erroneous thinking from the human consciousness, and to fill that consciousnes with spiritual truth. The physical healings in Christian Science are some of the "signs following" mentioned in Mark 16:20. This verse reads as follows: "And they went forth, and preached every where, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word with signs following." Mrs. Eddy states the purpose of Christian Science on page 150, beginning at line 10, of Science and Health, where she says: "The mission of Christian Science now, as in the time of its earlier demonstration, is not primarily one of physical healing. Now, as then, signs and wonders are wrought in the metaphysical healing of physical disease; but these signs are only to demonstrate its divine origin,—to attest the reality of the higher mission of the Christ-power to take away the sins of the world."