When a friend is in trouble, words of sympathy may comfort, but they seldom heal him. Material gifts convey a loving message, but they do not remove the cause of the suffering. How, then, can the most effective help be given?

The Bible gives an account of friendly help which led to a man's complete healing from crippling disease. This man was sick of the palsy, unable to walk. He was unable to go himself to Christ Jesus to seek healing because of his infirmity, and the crowds thronging the Master while he was in a house at Capernaum were so dense that it seemed hopeless to try to get near him.

Seeing the predicament and determined that their friend should be healed, four men came to his aid, taking strong measures to carry him to Jesus. The narrative relates (Mark 2:4): "When they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay."

The outcome of this determined action was healing, for through their faith these men succeeded in bearing their friend into the presence of Jesus, whose consciousness of the Christ destroyed the sinful, crippling condition which bound their friend. In response to the assertion of the Master that the sins of the man were forgiven and to the command that he rise, take up his bed, and go to his house, the man immediately obeyed and "went forth before them all."

In this century we may also help our friends in their hour of need. For the divine power which Jesus employed was not personal, as he himself declared, but is available to all who accept the Christ, the true idea of God, divine Love. Christian Science reveals that the Christlike power to heal is not localized and available only to those who can go to a certain individual. It is present everywhere.

This Science teaches that man, the exact image of God now and always, never lapses from goodness and harmony. In truth, man is forever at the standpoint of perfection. Sin and sickness are merely manifestations of false, mortal, material belief—manifestations which are destroyed when erring belief is replaced by the true understanding of God's spiritual, perfect creation.

This understanding of man's sonship with God is the Christ power which Jesus demonstrated in his healing work. When the one sick of the palsy was brought into the Master's presence, this Christly understanding of man's true sinless selfhood awakened the thought of the sick man, and he was healed.

We may all use the ever-present Christ-love to illumine our thought of our friends; indeed, we must do so if we are to be faithful to the understanding of true being which has been revealed to us through Christian Science.

When a glimpse of man's being as the perfect son of God dawns upon us, it becomes an obligation to us to let this truth govern all our thinking, both of ourselves and of others. Dwelling on the truths of spiritual being within the privacy of our own thought, to maintain the truth of perfect selfhood, knowing that man constantly expresses the qualities of health, harmony, freedom, and happiness, is not trespassing upon the rights of any individual to work out his problem in his own way.

Each one has the right to think his own thoughts and to select his own method of treatment. It is contrary to the rules of Christian Science to impose upon another the arguments and direct affirmations of the truths of metaphysical treatment unless such help is specifically requested. Meddlesome infringement of individual rights is inadmissible; however, as explained by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer—and Founder of Christian Science (see Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 282, 283), it may be nearest right in certain circumstances, when other means are ineffective or unavailable, for one to utilize the power of direct spiritual thinking in order to meet the immediate emergency.

It is our duty, however, to bear witness in our own thinking to the truth of spiritual being concerning all upon whom our thoughts rest. Paul said, "Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ" (Gal. 6:2). The tender words of sympathy and encouragement which we naturally would speak to the sufferer should be so based on God that they will quiet the fears of the sufferer and fill him with new hope. We must also lift our own thinking into the realm of Spirit and refuse to admit as real the pressure of material arguments that clamor for our agreement that man is mortal.

Mrs. Eddy says on page 428 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," "To divest thought of false trusts and material evidences in order that the spiritual facts of being may appear,—this is the great attainment by means of which we shall sweep away the false and give place to the true."

It requires true love and friendship to divest thought of the false material beliefs which sometimes seem to attach themselves to our neighbor. But the real friend will destroy in his own thinking every ugly picture of sin and discord.

When the light of the understanding of man's Godlike being is present in consciousness, it will destroy the dark shadows of mortal belief whenever thought is receptive to its healing touch. The sick will be restored to health and the sinner reformed, for, as Mrs. Eddy writes in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 9), "The spiritual power of a scientific, right thought, without a direct effort, an audible or even a mental argument, has oftentimes healed inveterate diseases."

Christ Jesus said (John 15: 13), "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." Taking this saying in its literal sense, many have indeed saved a friend at the cost of great personal sacrifice. When spiritually understood through Christian Science, the example of the four men whose action led to the healing of the man sick of the palsy may equally inspire us today and show how we, by knowing where the Christ, Truth, is, may effectively help our friends.