Editorial June 7, 1952 Issue

A QUESTION OF HONESTY AND JUSTICE

Helen Wood Bauman

"Honesty and justice characterize the seeker and finder of Christian Science," says Mary Baker Eddy in her book  "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 4). With many such straightforward directives Mrs. Eddy guides her followers along the path of Christian righteousness. She saw that the power to heal and the ability to receive healing call for Christly elements of thought and that disobedience to God's law of good forfeits the divine blessing. This led her to establish certain ethics in regard to charges for the professional services of practitioners listed in The Christian Science Journal, who are required by her Manual of The Mother Church to pursue no other vocation (see Art. XXV, Sect. 9).

In discussing the means of those who give their entire time to God in this practice, Mrs. Eddy says (Rudimental Divine Science, p.14): "They must give Him all their services, and 'owe no man.' To do this, they must at present ask a suitable price for their services, and then conscientiously earn their wages, strictly practising Divine Science, and healing the sick." And in an article entitled "The Laborer and his Hire," found in Miscellany (pp. 214-216), Mrs. Eddy further discusses the rightness of the practitioner's charging a just fee for his healing service. Here in support of her instruction she cites the words of Christ Jesus (Luke 10:7), "The labourer is worthy of his hire."

Luke tells of three occasions when the Master gave directives to his disciples regarding their means of livelihood. Once when he sent out the twelve "to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick" (9:1-6); then the occasion mentioned in the following chapter, when he sent seventy others to prepare the way for him; and finally, just before he went into the garden of Gethsemane. Evidently Christ Jesus saw that the Christian healer could not depend upon the doubtful mercy of humanity for sustenance as error claimed to rise in rebellion against Truth, for in the last instance he changed his former directives to carry neither purse, nor scrip, nor bread and commanded his disciples to be better provided for their expenses. He said (Luke 22:36), "He that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip."

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