Article June 17, 1939 Issue

Church

CONSTANCE MARY MANN

A YOUNG woman whose life stretched out before her with promise was gradually stricken with a disease which the medical faculty lovingly but unavailingly tried to heal. When the doctors had done all that they could do, this young woman turned to the church in which she had been confirmed, and asked for prayer that she might be healed. But healing by prayer, not being a part of that church's creed, was not understood. So she was told that it might be God's will that she should be sick. This verdict she could not reconcile with a God whom, from her mother's knee, she had been taught to regard as Love. So she turned from the creed she had tried to follow, and prayed in a simple, childlike way that God would show her how Jesus had healed the sick, and that if there were a church which understood his healing power, she might be led to find it.

She searched the Bible and read the promises of health, help, and healing, and her thought grew hopeful and expectant of heavenly help. Then a loved one heard that the Christian Science church understood how Jesus had healed, and he wrote to her saying, "I have found the Christ, and if you will get the Christian Science textbook, 'Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures' by Mary Baker Eddy, you, too, can find the Christ, and be healed." Eagerly she obeyed. Sweet indeed was its quiet, simple message. Its very opening words were to her as cold water to a thirsty traveler. This book satisfied her longings, revealed God to her, and above all showed her that she had not lost her church. As she continued to read, her thinking began to change from a material to a spiritual basis, and with the changed thinking came a bodily change, and she was healed.

With the healing came a great desire to know something of the Church founded by the woman who had written that wonderful book. In the Glossary of the textbook she found the definition of "Church." It reads (p. 583), "The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle;" and, "The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick."

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