Mrs. Eddy writes, "The measure of Life shall increase by every spiritual touch, even as the leaven expands the loaf." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 175;} Who does not want to increase his measure of Life? How can we experience this spiritual touch?

Certainly the person who touched more lives to improvement, development, achievement, and healing than any other was the Master, Christ Jesus. How did the Master reach the people? He felt the power and majesty of the truth and love which he taught, and consequently he reached and renovated receptive hearts.

In Matthew's Gospel is recorded a healing of a leper who came and worshiped Jesus, "saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.'" ^{Matt. 8:2, 3;}

Following in the footsteps of the Galilean Prophet, Mrs. Eddy brought the healing touch of the Christ to humanity. The biographies of her life abound in accounts of healings. Healings were accomplished by Mrs. Eddy, as they were by the Master, often when those who were healed were not physically present. Today, Christian Science practitioners, following humbly in the footsteps of Christ Jesus and Mrs. Eddy, frequently bring healing to patients whom they never see.

As we gain an enlightened concept of the tangibility and omnipresence of Spirit, it will not seem miraculous to us that someone who is not physically present with another can help and heal him. Scientific healing does not include any suggestion of thought transference from one individual to another. The one divine Mind communicates its own perfection, purity, and health to the receptive thought because all of God's ideas are forever embraced in the one spiritual consciousness.

In a human sense some of us have been touched by hearing a Beethoven symphony; others have been enthralled by viewing the majesty of the Grand Canyon; perhaps many have had their routine moments enlightened by the sweet smile of a child. Surely in these experiences more than a physical sense of sound and sight reached us. Can we not agree that Beethoven's human deafness did not prevent him from being touched by the highest sense of sound? Contrariwise, have there not been moments when our thought has been so preoccupied that even the smile of a child might not have touched us?

True communication is necessarily mental, always going on in the one Mind. Ideas which issue forth from divine Mind are ever present and available for each of us to receive and share. Deity expresses Himself through the touch of gentleness, grace, humility, affection, qualities of Spirit, Love. Whenever these spiritual qualities are in evidence, human consciousness is reached and redeemed as surely today as it was in the Master's time.

A viewpoint largely dominated by scholastic modes of thought will not heal because it does not reach out beyond the boundary of limited human thinking. Tender, loving, considerate knowing of simple truths reaches receptive thought because it is evidencing the one Spirit or Mind, which includes all. Truth always needs the function of Love to give it spirit and life.

Mrs. Eddy writes: "The vital part, the heart and soul of Christian Science, is Love. Without this, the letter is but the dead body of Science,—pulseless, cold, inanimate." ^{Science and Health, p. 113;} We can never reach others by repeating the words of the Master and of Mrs. Eddy unless we accompany the words with the spiritual essence of Love. Quite separate from the worldly beliefs of a material man and a material means of reaching him to heal and help him comes the scientific system of Christ-healing. In full agreement with the first chapter of Genesis, scientific metaphysics teaches that Spirit, God, has created man in His spiritual image and that man is idea dwelling forever in the infinite Mind.

One might ask, "How does this affect our human experience?" That which penetrates the human consciousness to bless and to heal is the Christ, which manifests God's power and presence. The Christ appears to the human thought in the degree that thought is spiritualized. We experience its touch solely through spiritual consciousness. How can we have more of this spiritual consciousness? We attain this consciousness step by step by replacing hatred with love, peevishness with forgiveness, grouchiness with sweetness, harshness with tenderness, and so forth.

As our measure of spirituality increases, we understand that our true identity is reached and touched only by spiritual ideas and qualities. To know that only that which is spiritual really reaches us enables us also to understand what cannot reach us. Jesus stated this truth simply when he spoke to the Jews of the time when he would go to his Father, and said, "Where I am, thither ye cannot come." ^{John 7:34;} Does this statement not show us that when we dwell "in the secret place of the most High" ^{Ps. 91:1;} no false belief of disease, sin, or destruction can come to us?

Christian Science practitioners realize the importance of recognizing that the true identity of a patient cannot be reached by the beliefs of sin, disease, fear, or ignorance. It is important to see that this truth applies eternally. Real identity is never touched by false concepts of material heredity, nor is it touched by doubtful speculations concerning the future. Each and every one of God's ideas was, is, and ever will be the perfect reflection of divine Mind, unreachable, unaffectable, and untouchable by mortal mind.

If we want to cultivate the spiritual touch of giving good and the capacity for receiving the spiritual touch of good, let us awaken to our present understanding of Spirit's infinite self-containment. God, Spirit, includes all His ideas. As the individual conscious reflection of Spirit, man includes the right idea of his brother as well as of himself. Embracing one's brother in the consciousness of the one indivisible Love can awaken him to feel and know the presence and tangibility of good. Dark images of disease, distress, and despondency, being dreams of mortal sense, disappear in the radiance of Love's illuminating. For a practitioner to know the spiritual truth of his patient causes spiritual verity to be felt by the one being treated.

Mrs. Eddy gives us in an article entitled "Angels" this truth: "When angels visit us, we do not hear the rustle of wings, nor feel the feathery touch of the breast of a dove; but we know their presence by the love they create in our hearts. Oh, may you feel this touch,—it is not the clasping of hands, nor a loved person present: it is more than this: it is a spiritual idea that lights your path!" ^{Mis., p. 306.}