[Dr. Henry M. Edmonds, in the Birmingham Post, Alabama]

I am debtor to the Christian Scientists. They helped to rescue us from the teaching of the nineteenth century that everything was matter. For a time they seemed to have gone too far, but we always move in pendulum swings. And their position is not more extreme than the accepted teaching of physics today that everything at bottom is electrical.

They restored health to its place among the concerns of the church. Much more needs to be done in this direction in all our thinking and in all our programs, but a vast deal has already been accomplished. As believers in God we are nearer than we have been since Biblical days to the acceptance of the privilege and responsibility of personal and community health. There were never before so many people exploring the problem as to the relation between health and holiness. In derivation they are one word. Are they one in practice? They are much nearer so than many of us used to think.

With their startling statement that all sickness is in the mind, they have reopened the question of the relation between mind and body and have forced us to the conclusion that that relation is much more intimate than we once thought. Our modern physicians are physicians of the mind as never before.

They have taught us better thinking about our own health. A bore may be the man who interprets, "How are you?" as a question instead of a salutation. Nevertheless it was a question originally. We say in effect: "Something is surely wrong with you. And if you have no symptoms, I should be glad to relate a few of my own." Doctors would say today that in the majority of cases nothing is wrong with you. The Christian Scientists then are nearer the facts than the rest of us. They are a gentle and happy people.

I am debtor to the Christian Scientists.

[From the Home News, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania]

The important purpose of Jesus was to "teach" men the truth, by revealing the divine, by words, by example, by illustration, by analogy, or whatever method the moment required. It was not his desire to amaze or mystify, yet very often he accomplished these results.

One of his most striking miracles was the healing of the man sick of the palsy, brought to him by four devoted friends, all five having in their hearts the faith so necessary for great achievement.

Jesus was busy as "he spake the word" unto the crowded company in the Capernaum home. He had eager listeners, hurriedly gathering when they discovered Jesus had returned from his recent swing around Galilee. Yet, Jesus stopped teaching and performed an aweinspiring wonder.

"The healing miracles of Jesus were not wrought to prove what God could do, and man could not do," wrote Leslie D. Weatherford, "but what man could do and ought to do," if they would accept the wonderful assurance of power offered through the Gospel of John, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also." ...

When the four friends brought the palsied sufferer to the house where Jesus was, they were blocked away by the crowd, but, full of persistent faith, they lowered him down from the roof, resting immediately in front of Jesus, attracting his notice both to their belief in his power and their devotion to the sufferer. Jesus always rewards faith and fidelity, so here he addressed to the patient words forgiving his sins....

How far can faith act in our own lives? To a much greater degree of reality than any of us dare to believe! ...

The difference between Christianity and other religions is illustrated in an incident related by Ben Morris Ridpath, in the Christian Advocate, as follows: "While in university I met a young Chinese student, who later came out to the little church where I was pastor. In telling the congregation that Sunday why he was a Christian, he stated, in his characteristic way: 'I am a Christian. Other religions tell you to be good, say good things. Christianity do good.... ' "

Let us always remember that Jesus "went about doing good," and try, as Christians, to follow his example.

[Rev. D. Clifford Jones, as quoted in the Courier, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia]

"One thing I know." These words were spoken by the man whose sight had been restored by Christ [Jesus] when he was being questioned by the Pharisees regarding the miracle. The man was uncertain regarding certain aspects of the happening, but said, "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see."

Plenty of people have an opnion about the Christian faith, and plenty will tell you what they think about it. But what we need today is people who have Christian certainty. It is a great day in our lives when we pass from uncertainty to certainty, from being able to say "I think" to "I know." The great things of life cannot be argued about—they must be accepted or left alone. The goodness of God and the love of God are beyond argument. If you have seen the light in the face of Jesus, that is sufficient. The young man could see—that was his experience. But all the talk about Christianity is useless unless you have the power and faith of Jesus. God communicates His certainties to hearts that want them.... When you have experienced them you have passed from "I think" to "I know." They form a living experience that cannot be taken away.

[From the Christian Standard, Cincinnati, Ohio]

There are some diseases which no physician can cure because they are the result of sin, which must first be forgiven and cleansed. The guilty conscience; the mind imbued with hatred; the burden of overwhelming anxiety, or awful fear; the tyranny of lust—any of these may hold the body in bondage and thwart the skill of the best physicians.

When Jesus said, "Man, thy sins are forgiven thee," he cleared the way for the healing that would endure if the patient would only continue to go in peace and sin no more. There is no way of telling how many apparently hopeless cases in asylums and hospitals might still be able to take up their beds and walk if only the word of forgiveness and peace could be brought to them, and if only they would receive it. We are persuaded that a vast amount of suffering goes unrelieved because men do not hear the word of peace through the gospel.

[Dr. Frank J. Sladen, as quoted in the Utica (New York) Observer-Dispatch]

It is my firm conviction that God meant we should apply truth to keeping well....

We have discovered, frankly, that health is dependent on the Christ-life. Not the creed you favor, not the type of church you prefer—nothing life that. Just simply the Christ-life, without fanfare or profession of goodness.

Charity—a charitable outlook on your fellow men—inner calmness, forbearance, rich personal resources, prayer are essential. Dependency on diversions as escapes or compensations, jealousy, scorn, gossip, pride, little meannesses, family intrigues, lack of honor, anger, a sense of drive, these.... are leading factors in much that is termed sickness.

Person after person whom we studied, ill, miserable, ripe for hospitalization, needed, more than medication, more than surgery, the Christ-life....

As a physician, a scientist, let me give you this truth—the person who is influenced by the commonplaces of the day, upset to the point of fury by the gossip of the man at the gas station, roused to fear by his boss, apprehensive, over-reactive to his environment, that man is courting illness.

[J. D. McCrae, in the United Church Observer, Toronto]

The church might use the services of the Great Physician more than it does. That is the central thought in the message which this lesson [Mark 2:1—12] brings home to us. No one can study the nature and scope of Jesus' ministry without realizing how great a part healing played in it. And no one in constant touch with people in Christian ministry today will minimize the extent of human hunger for a ministry that touches them to heal their ills.

The writer of this comment recently preached a sermon to his own congregation on the Christian gospel in relation to the problem of sickness and pain. The response was an amazing manifestation of the pressure of that problem on the minds and hearts of people everywhere. A message of good news claiming such complete adequacy as does the Christian evangel must have much to say on a need so universal as this....

We must note the eagerness and determination of the folk to be healed of their maladies. The crowding of the house where Jesus was did not deter them. They uncovered the roof and let down the bed bearing the victim till he was brought right into the presence of Jesus....

One other emphasis must be made. For all that Jesus gave so much time and energy to his healing task, he never failed to subordinate it to the far greater one of bringing to men deliverance from sin. His word to the sick man here is definitely set forth as purposive so far as all about him are concerned. "That ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) ... Arise, and take up thy bed."

[The Bishop of Exeter, in the Express and Echo, Exeter, England]

Life is largely made up of meeting the other man. How to keep contact with him without coming into conflict with him is a hard problem to which, with Christian faith as our guide, we must now turn our attention.

The first thing is to "see" the other man as he is. The chief difficulty in "loving the other man as yourself" is that most of us have never really "seen" him. So Jesus told men they must begin with God: that means we must see the other man as God sees him. No other view can possibly be correct. God's view must be right. It must be right also to say (for "we are all equal in God's sight") that God sees the other man exactly as He sees you.