The Mental Remedy

The all-important consideration for humanity is how to reach the moral and intellectual stature which ever marks the Christ-man, and thus to realize the fulfilment of the Divine purpose. That this is the ultimate of all true and purposeful endeavor, none would deny, though perhaps but few have recognized it as a constant demand resting upon all alike.

Before the advent of the world's great Teacher many had striven for that intellectual supremacy which can never be separated from progress, even in its purely human sense. Paul, commenting upon this, said, "The Greeks seek after wisdom;" he also said that the preaching of the Christ,—the Christ-doctrine,—was, to the Greek thought, "foolishness." The same may be said-to-day with respect to many who, to their very great loss, reject the mental healing of Christian Science which identifies its teaching with that of Jesus and the apostles. Christian Science finds its justification, however, in the character of its appeal, as well as in its effects.

Nearly all those who accept this teaching have been led to do so by their observation, or by their own experience, of its value, as a remedial agent, to the sick and suffering. Prior to such experiences, these people had believed in material methods of healing, but when Christian Science was brought to their notice they were quickly led to see the very important fact that these methods have no relation whatever to man's moral and intellectual needs, to say nothing of his spiritual nature as the child of God. They also began to comprehend, in some degree, what is meant by the dominion which is man's divine inheritance; and that material methods of dealing with error fail entirely to recognize this dominion.

The study of Christian Science makes it clear that all who are afflicted "in mind, body, or estate" are really suffering from their belief in the cruel despotism of a supposed material law, and that dependence upon material remedies only intensifies this bondage. In witnessing the struggles of these sufferers, Shakespeare's words become very significant,—

Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.
Aye, truly; yet methinks it is the world that brings the iron.

Because "the world of error is ignorant of the world of

Truth" (Science and Health, p. 13), is brings to every poor sufferer the "iron"—material theories of pain and pleasure, of disease and its cure, from which are forged the fetters of sin and sickness. These theories, one and all, ignore the dignity and the infinite spiritual possibilities of man as the representative of divine Mind. When this healing truth is revealed to the sufferer, he turns away from the belief in narcotics and opiates which dull his senses, and which stupefy and becloud intellect and morals alike, at the moment when he needs to be most awake to work out his own salvation through Christ, whom the Bible declares to be "the power of God and the wisdom of God."

In his teaching and healing Christ Jesus made much of Knowing. He declared that to know God is eternal life, and that to know the truth shall make free. What more can be asked or desired than eternal life and freedom? It is this knowing and its glorious results which constitute the theory and practice of Christian Science, wherein the remedy for every human woe contains a quickening appeal to man's highest nature; and "body, intellect, and morals" respond, in fulfilment of Christ's promise, "The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."

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