Article September 26, 1942 Issue

Healing through Obedience to the Church Manual

LUCILE HUNTINGTON SHOOP

After the resurrection Jesus returned to his disciples and charged Peter with a responsibility that was to fall for all time upon those who would walk in the Master's footsteps, preaching the gospel and healing the sick. Questioning Peter as to his sincerity, "Lovest thou me more than these?" Jesus then commanded him: "Feed my lambs.... Feed my sheep.... Feed my sheep."

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, well aware of the responsibility of shepherding the sheep and the lambs into God's fold, gave for guidance, spiritual food, and protection the Manual of The Mother Church, of which she said (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 230), "Of this I am sure, that each Rule and Bylaw in this Manual will increase the spirituality of him who obeys it, invigorate his capacity to heal the sick, to comfort such as mourn, and to awaken the sinner."

The Rules and By-Laws in the Manual are laden with divine inspiration and healing for those who read them thoughtfully and obey them implicitly. One such healing was experienced by a young student of Christian Science who was laboring under great fear and distress because of business conditions over which she felt she had no control. One day she went into a Christian Science Reading Room for a few minutes of refreshing study and prayer. She reached for the first book available, and found she had taken up the Church Manual. Her eye fell upon the sixth tenet, on page 16, which reads: "And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure." These words were to her a clarion call to action. Here was a definite line of procedure that she could follow immediately as a means of demonstrating the power of Christian Science to bring about harmony.

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