Instinctive in the human heart is an innate feeling that health is an inherent quality of life, the legitimate and normal state of man's being, as witness mankind's effort to gain and retain health, together with the endless research carried on in this endeavor and the noble and self-sacrificing lives of those who would truly be humanity's helpers. Yet how often lack of health seems to preponderate in human experience, and how fleeting is the human concept of health!

The Scriptures are replete with utterances concerning health. The prophet Isaiah voices the unequivocal deific promise, "Thine health shall spring forth speedily." Two outstandingly beautiful passages also are found in Jeremiah 30:17 and 33:6.

The reason humanity in general has not attained health is that, in seeking it through physical theories and materialistic methods, mankind is looking for it in the wrong direction. The fundamental error at the root of all belief in ill-health is the acceptance of the theory that man is material rather than spiritual, that he originates in matter rather than in Spirit, and that he is dependent upon matter rather than Mind for his sustenance and well-being. Even when physical theories acknowledge man to be both material and spiritual, they still insist that he possesses a physical organism which dictates his status of health or misery. All such theories are false.

Christian Science strikes at the root of materialism and reveals man as wholly spiritual, fashioned in God's likeness, as the Scriptures declare. Thus Christian Science heals where materialistic methods have proved inadequate. Everyone may avail himself of its healing, regenerative ministry through contemplative study of the Bible in conjunction with the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, and prayerful application in his daily life of the truths therein revealed. In tender reassurance the textbook states (pp. 12, 13): "In divine Science, where prayers are mental, all may avail themselves of God as 'a very present help in trouble.' Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals. It is the open fount which cries, 'Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters.'"

In pronouncing the promise of health, the prophet describes a fast as the requirement of its fulfillment. He chides the people for an outward show of fasting while inwardly they were smiting "with the fist of wickedness." In exquisite imagery he voices Truth's demand and promise thus (Isa. 58:6-8): "Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that ... thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily."

Human theories generally accept the thought of fasting as abstaining from certain foods in observance of a religious rite. Other human theories prescribe abstinence as diet, believing food to be injurious under certain circumstances. How far removed from the true fast are all such theories! Christ Jesus, who healed as none other has ever healed, and who, according to the Gospel records, observed no ritualistic fast, rebuked his disciples' inability to heal a certain case. Mrs. Eddy comments upon this incident in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 222) as follows: "When his disciples asked him why they could not heal that case, Jesus, the master Metaphysician, answered, 'Because of your unbelief' (lack of faith); and then continued: 'If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove.' Also he added: 'This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting' (refraining from admitting the claims of the senses)." Other illuminating passages on the nature of real fasting may be found through consulting the Concordances to our Leader's writings. The fast which abstains from admitting the claims of the senses is the daily and hourly reflection and demonstration of divine Love, the Love which lifts thought above sense to Soul and casts out fear.

Throughout her writings Mrs. Eddy tells us much about health. She completely eschews the materialistic theories concerning it and lifts health to the realm of pure Mind. In her "Miscellaneous Writings" she tersely says (p. 298), "The true consciousness is the true health." A similar statement, which tells us how this consciousness may be gained, is found in Miscellany, page 349, lines 3-6. Paul gave the recipe for health when he said, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God" (Phil. 2:5, 6). The true consciousness or Mind which was in Christ Jesus is the Mind which, in sublime radiancy, beholds itself—God and His manifestation—as All-in-all. In this Mind is no taint or blemish, no poison or impurity, no deformity or decay, no weakness, weariness, inaction, or overaction. This Mind is Life everlasting, reflecting itself in purity, beauty, vigor, joy, and freshness.

True consciousness, or spiritual self-knowledge, obliterates the belief that one is a mortal whom God endows for a short span of life with variable health. Pure Mind is undeceived by the vicissitudes of an ungodlike mortal experience. Because disease expresses not one quality of God it has not one iota of reality. Man in God's likeness abides in conscious perfection, untouched by the mortal dream of sin and death. He has no need of healing. No element of time separates him from God and the present realization of well-being, wherein Isaiah's prophecy is fulfilled, "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily."

L. Ivimy Gwalter