Humanity's urgent need is health. Christian Science meets this need. The aim and purpose of the Christian Science movement is Christian healing; its actitivies are dedicated to revealing and demonstrating the healing influence of the Christ, the divine idea, in human experience. Our wise Leader says: "In different ages the divine idea assumes different forms, according to humanity's needs. In this age it assumes, more intelligently than ever before, the form of Christian healing" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 370). To make this Christian healing available to all mankind, Mrs. Eddy wrote and published the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and her other works on the subject of Christian Science, and established The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist.

"He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions," says a psalm; and Isaiah writes, "My word . . . shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it." The express purpose for which God has sent His Word is the redemption, salvation, and healing of mankind collectively and individually. This Word of God is the truth to which Jesus bore witness through his spiritual understanding of Being. Jesus' whole earthly ministry evidenced the efficacy of this healing Word. Wherever he went, the sick were healed and the hungry fed; sinners were reformed; dismal and heavy hearts and lives were made joyful, peaceful, and contented. The application of his understanding of God's Word saved mankind. And it was upon the demonstrable understanding of the truth that he built his church. In Science and Health (p. 136) Mrs. Eddy writes, "Jesus established his church and maintained his mission on a spiritual foundation of Christ-healing." His faithful follower, our beloved Leader, also established her church upon this same spiritual foundation; and its mission is maintained upon this same Christ-healing. And humanity's cry to-day is for healing, redeeming, practical Christianity, to save it from want, woe, sin, sickness, and death. Does the Christian Science movement do this? It does. Multitudes are being freed from the most hopeless forms of sin and disease as a direct result of its healing ministrations.

Mrs. Eddy wrote the Christian Science textbook to bring Christian healing to mankind. She had discovered that God is divine Principle, and that Principle is demonstrable. This discovery healed her; and so great was her love for humanity that she immediately sought to share the knowledge of this healing Principle with them. Science and Health elucidates Mrs. Eddy's discovery, providing simple rules for applying Christian Science to the cure of sin and disease. All may avail themselves of the truths taught in this textbook, a perusal of which has healed inveterate disease. And an earnest study of it will enable its students to heal "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people."

In furtherance of the healing mission of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy organized The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and arranged the plan of its activities among mankind. She never lost sight of her purpose: Christian healing was always paramount in her thought. If her church was to be established upon the foundatin which Jesus laid, Mrs. Eddy saw it to be essential that the physically and mentally sick should be healed, the sinning reformed, the sorrowing comforted, the needy fed, clothed, and sheltered, and death and all human limitation and disability overcome, as the direct results of the ministrations of Christian Science. In all of the church work she emphasized the spiritual healing of disease and sin, in literal fulfillment of Jesus' words, "These signs shall follow them that believe."

It is the Word of God which heals and saves, not human, personal opinions about the Word. God's Word is not dependent upon human opinion or personal preaching; it is not influenced by the bias of personal prejudice and opinions: it is the truth, unchanging, eternal, divine, forever remaining to be ascertained, understood, and demonstrated.

To obviate the possible danger of Christian Science becoming contaminated by human opinions, however sincere, Mrs. Eddy early substituted impersonal preachers for the personal pastors or speakers who first officiated at the public services of her church. She ordained the Bible and Science and Health to be the pastor of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and of all of its branches. She arranged that Lesson-Sermons should be prepared on certain subjects, which she specified, and that they should consist of carefully selected passages from the two books named. These Lesson-Sermons, forming the impersonal presentation of the Word of God which saves and heals, are read aloud each Sunday in Christian Science churches throughout the world. This Word of God speaks to the earnest listener in his own language, as in the day of Pentecost, each receiving according to his capacity; and those who accept it with honest, humble hearts are healed of their sickness, sin, sorrow, and distress; for the Word cannot return unto God void.

At the Wednesday evening meetings, the readings from the desk, the singing of the hymns, the prayer, the oral testimonies—all have the same healing mission. Those who attend have the right to expect healing to come to them in proportion to their receptivity to the revealed truth. Every part of the work of The Mother Church and its branches, and all of the work of their officers, have Christian healing for their purpose. The Sunday schools, the Reading Rooms, the literature distribution committees, the Board of Lectureship, the Committees on Publication, class teaching, the work of practitioners—all inculcate and demonstrate Christin healing. The Christian Science Publishing society sends out a constant stream of healing and saving messges through The Christian Science Journal, reminding us of God's everpresence and power; through the Christian Science Sentinel, teaching us to watch for and guard the revealed truth; and through The Christian Science Monitor, leading men to recognize and to establish their brotherhood as the children of the one divine, infinite Father-Mother God.

As it is with the activities of the Christian Science church, so it must necessarily be with the thoughts of those who comprise its membership, in keeping with these lines from a favorite hymn:

The healing and saving mission of the Christian Science church will be expressed in its fullness only when all the members emulate in thought and in deed the example of our great Teacher, since it is axiomatic that the whole is equal to the sum of its parts. Christian Science is not merely another of the many Christian denominations into which the primitive church has been divided. Semiweekly attendance in a place where its teaching is publicly set forth is not all that is required of its adherents. Christian Scientists cannot be hearers of the Word only: they must be doers as well. Every Christian Scientist is called upon to put into practice constantly the truths which he learns, actually and literally to present the proof that in the twentieth century, as in the first, spiritual understanding of God as infinite, divine Principle is what heals sickness and destroys sin.

A Christian Scientist is not one who merely conforms outwardly to a particular doctrine or creed, leaving most of the work to professional ministers or pastors. He practices his religion, seeking to understand and obey divine law. What, then, shall be his attitude toward the Church of Christ, Scientist? This church is not a place where mortals gather for ritualistic observance: it is the voluntary association of those who in thought, word, and deed seek to be obedient to the law of God, as taught and demonstrated by Christ Jesus. "Jesus demonstrated Christ" (Science and Health, p. 332); he proved that the understanding of God brings all good to men; he lifted thought out of sensuality, and above personality and materiality into the eternal, spiritual nature of true being. The Christian Scientist mut do the same. He must lift his thought above the sensual and earthly to the spiritual and divine; he must know and prove that purified living lifts above worldliness and sensuality. And he will be known by his fruits. Then will he see the fulfillment of the promise of the Christ, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me;" and then also will many be drawn to him to seek and to experience the healing and saving ministrations of the Science which proves the ever-availability of our God, who forgives all our iniquities and heals all our diseases.

When, as on the day of Pentecost, students of Christian Science are of one accord in their conviction of the allpresence and all-power of God's healing and saving love for mankind, and are proving their conviction by their lives, then multitudes of the sick, the sinning, the sorrowful, the needy, the heavy-laden, shall be drawn to the Christian healing so clearly demonstrated through Christian Science; and they shall be healed—every one.