Article October 4, 1941 Issue

Standing Fast in Liberty

CAROBETH LAIRD

To thousands who have sought its healing ministry, Christian Science has brought a glorious liberation. Modes of matter which once they regarded as immutable laws have yielded to the beneficent law of Spirit, unjust decrees of heredity have been annulled, and hopeless sentences of medical systems have been set aside. Faults of character also have been corrected, new hope has dawned, unguessed abilities have unfolded, fresh opportunities have been discovered, and eyes have begun to open upon the grander, fairer universe of Spirit. Yet in spite of all this, there are those who have been tempted at one time or another to return to material methods of healing, and some have yielded, only to find that they have re-entered the house of bondage and must find their way out again, having forfeited for a time the joy and spontaneity which accompanied their first deliverance.

Whence comes this temptation, and why is it so persistent? Since God does not know evil or matter, His children cannot know it. Temptation originates in the mortal or carnal mind, which the Apostle Paul defined as "enmity against God." Temptation is the solicitation of the one evil, the belief that there is something else besides God, good. It cannot touch God's children, the wholly spiritual beings who inhabit reality; but it operates in the shadowy realm of human consciousness, where good and evil seem to mingle and to contend for the mastery. The carnal mind brought about the crucifixion of Jesus, and later, through misinterpretation and materialization of the Word, claimed to separate from Christianity its healing function, assigning this power to matter rather than to Spirit, and making religion a thing of creeds, doctrines, and ceremonies. Mary Baker Eddy discovered the Science which Jesus taught and practiced, gave it to the world in a form that all might utilize, in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and organized "a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing" (Manual of The Mother Church, p. 17).

In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy writes (pp. 145, 146): "The theology of Christian Science includes healing the sick. Our Master's first article of faith propounded to his students was healing, and he proved his faith by his works. The ancient Christians were healers. Why has this element of Christianity been lost? Because our systems of religion are governed more or less by our systems of medicine. The first idolatry was faith in matter."

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