In a recent issue of your paper a clergyman of your city...

W. Truman Green,

St. Petersburg Times

In a recent issue of your paper a clergyman of your city states in substance that he believes the healings recorded in the New Testament and in Christian Science result through the application of a powerful will; and that suggestion is a common factor in the healing method.

Reforming the sinner and healing the sick were one and the same with Christ Jesus, who in speaking of his ministry said, "I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me." Surely it was not God's will that His beloved Son should be compelled to resort to a kind of witchcraft through employing a powerful will, or a form of mesmeric suggestion, in order to heal "all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people." Neither was it God's will that Jesus should instruct his twelve disciples, and his other seventy also, in the exercise of human will or any form of suggestion in order that they might obey his command to heal both the sick and the sinning. It is evident that the Master's instructions to this disciples consisted in his imparting to them a true knowledge of God, of man, and of man's true relation to God; and also in instructing his disciples and imparting to them an understanding of spiritual law, its availability, its application, and its operation.

On page 144 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," its author, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "Willing the sick to recover is not the metaphysical practice of Christian Science, but is sheer animal magnetism. Human will-power may infringe the rights of man. It produces evil continually, and is not a factor in the realism of being." All who understand the teaching of Christian Science sufficiently to heal the sick and to reform the sinner through its ministration, well know that neither human will-power nor suggestion is employed in its legitimate practice.

The clergyman asserts that it is his belief that there is more hope for the world in one highly trained, broad-minded physician than in a hundred Christian Scientists. No doubt the Pharisees thought likewise when they heard of the marvelous healing works of Christ Jesus. They said of him, "This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils." Their materialistic beliefs prevented their recognition and acceptance of spiritual facts. They did not understand spiritual law; therefore they were incredulous, and were antagonistic to Jesus and to his religion of spiritual healing. Perhaps the reverend gentleman recalls the account, as recorded in Mark's Gospel, of the woman who came to Jesus for healing after she "had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." Did Jesus advise this poor woman to seek another more "broad-minded physician," to take a rest cure, to change her diet, or to submit to a surgical operation? No! Jesus knew that God's spiritual law, the law of Truth and Love, was sufficient to meet her every need, and with Christly compassion he healed her. Christian Science practitioners are meeting with such cases as the above, and with the light of spiritual understanding they too are reforming the sinner and healing the sick as did Christ Jesus. Spiritual healing is the sign of Immanuel, of the ever-presence of God, who healeth all our diseases.

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