Healing Essential

We print in another column a letter from a minister of the Methodist Church, written after he had attended a Wednesday evening meeting in one of the churches of our denomination, and it is interesting to note the impression the meeting made upon him. He writes, "The truths I heard that night hover in the van of the race." "I have not heard saner testimonies in any meeting;" and of the people who comprise the congregation he writes, "Those who think Christian Scientists do not equal in intellectual measurement the other sects, have only a superficial knowledge of the subject."

These meetings were established that the public at large might learn of the practical and beneficial results of Christian Science practice, that suffering humanity might know that ours is indeed a gospel with signs following, and what this gentleman saw and heard is not different from what may be seen and heard by any unprejudiced person sufficiently interested to attend one of these meetings.

Mr. Whitford had an opportunity to see and talk with the persons who testified of their healing, and no doubt he was competent to judge, in a general way at least, of their health, and he seems to have been satisfied with the evidence presented, although some of our critics have disputed the value of such testimony because it is not accompanied by the certificate of a doctor of medicine. The contention of these critics is that Christian Scientists are without technical knowledge and therefore unable properly to diagnose disease; but they forget that the great majority of cases cited at these meetings are cases which were diagnosed by physicians and unsuccessfully treated by them before the patients turned to Christian Science and were healed.

Christian Science has been scoffed at and maligned by such critics, its theology has been questioned, its cures have been doubted, and its followers have been misrepresented; but the stately progress of the healing work has not been hindered by these criticisms, which, however learned they may appear, are in fact purely theoretical. These academic critics have from time to time proved to their own satisfaction that Christian Science is absurd and harmful, but while they have been doing this, Christian Scientists have continued to heal the sick, reform sinners, and bind up the broken-hearted. A fact, established by testimony, is worth more than any number of theories, and so long as the sick are healed by Christian Science, so long will there be irrefutable proof of the truth of its teaching.

When the divine nature of Jesus' origin and ministry was questioned, he referred to his mighty works, calmly assured that they were sufficient to establish the validity of his claims. His answer to John's messenger, "Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached," was a declaration that these works should be sufficient to convince any honest inquirer of the genuineness of his professions, and in this regard, as in all others, Christian Scientists will make no mistake in following our Master's example when the divine mission of Christian Science is challenged. M.

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The Signs of the Times

April 16, 1904

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