Speaker: Our program today is entitled "A Growth Healed Through Prayer." Physical healings are taking place all the time through prayer, the prayer of spiritual understanding, and such prayer enables anyone to avail himself of God's healing power. Our guest is Toll R. Ware of St. Louis, Missouri, and he found this to be true.

How did this come about, Mr. Ware?

Mr. Ware: In 1943 a growth appeared on my right ear, and before it had become too noticeable, I had it removed by surgery. But within a short time it reappared. After a few years, it grew larger until it became quite alarming. In the meantime, my wife and I had begun to study Christian Science; so I decided to rely wholeheartedly on the power of God to heal this physical condition. But I had a great deal to learn before the healing finally came.

In the first place, because of this growth, I was always worrying about what other people were thinking about me. Walking down the street, I would always maneuver around so I would be on the righthand side of the group; and in elevators I'd always try to stand with my right side away from the others. And every morning when I would shave, of course I would look at this growth to see how I was progressing.

Then I began to realize that I didn't need to watch matter, to observe matter, to see how I was progressing spiritually. This statement of Jesus' from Luke 17 came to me: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

Then my wife and I had occasion to go to another city on a business trip. After a Wednesday evening testimony meeting in a Christian Science church, we met a good friend we hadn't seen in quite a long time.

We had a brief conversation about healings in Christian Science, and then he asked me, "What healings have you had in Christian Science?"

My answer was, "None that I can recall just now, but I'm going to have one."

Immediately my friend said: "What do you mean, you're going to have one? You're perfect now, and you know it."

Well, I hardly knew how to take that. But by the next day those words which I thought were a rebuke to me became words of love, because they awakened me to the spiritual status of man as God's perfect image and likeness. I saw that if God is the only creator, the All-in-all, the only cause, and if man is really made in God's image and likeness, then man is perfect, now and always. He couldn't be anything else, because God is changeless, and His image is changeless.

You see, I had been thinking that someday, of course, the healing would come to me. I had never quite realized, though, that man is perfect now. So I began to lose sight of the imperfect mortal who had seemed so real to me for so long, and at the same time the growth on my ear began to disintegrate until it finally disappeared.

And many are the blessings I have received in the years since then through application of the truths taught in Christian Science.

Speaker: Thank you, Mr. Ware, for telling us about your healing.

There's no mystery, friends, in prayer's bringing such a cure. There's scientific basis or method for such prayer, and it enables anyone to avail himself of the divine healing power taught and illustrated by the Master, Christ Jesus.

Mr. Ware said he began his prayerful reasoning from the standpoint of perfect God and perfect man, made in God's own image and likeness, as the Bible declares. In other words, our guest turned his thoughts away from the body to the truth of man's spiritual nature, his perfect identity as the child of God. Christian Science shows that this is fundamental to successful prayer. We start with perfect God and perfect, spiritual man and keep this reality clearly before our thought.

This is what Mr. Ware meant when he said that he "began to lose sight of the imperfect mortal" who had seemed so real to him for so long.

Through acknowledging that God is man's Maker, infinite, perfect, all-powerful, the only creator, we naturally begin to see man as spiritual and perfect, made in the image of God. How comforting it is to realize that the actual state of man is spiritual perfection!

This is quite a revolutionary teaching, very different from the ordinary concept of man. But Christ Jesus not only taught these spiritual truths, he demonstrated them more fully than anyone else. Again and again he showed that prayer brings physical healing when it is based on the understanding of man's God-given perfection. And Christian Science points out the steps to gain this understanding and prove its effectiveness.

The method of such prayer is summarized in the following passage from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. In this statement, Mrs. Eddy use the words Truth, Love, and Principle, as synonyms for God. She writes (p. 261): "Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts."

Now the logic of this statement is clear when you stop to think about it. Continually watching a diseased condition tends to make it seem more real and powerful, tends to accentuate the fear which is the very foundation of disease. But turning our attention to God as the only cause and creator lets in the light and healing power of divine Truth.

As a result, we realize that actually there is no basis in God, Truth, for discord or sickness of any kind. How could there be, since God and all He creates are forever perfect? This spiritual reasoning makes clear that in reality man is spiritual, not material, and is perfect right now because he is truly the image of God, eternal Spirit.

The gaining of this understanding brings a change of base in our thinking, and this change of consciousness brings with it a change in the outward evidence; in other words, it brings physical healing. Our guest's experience supplies a splendid illustration of this fact.

Now let's summarize what we've been saying. You can see that the very starting point of effective prayer is the acknowledging of perfect God and perfect, spiritual man, even though the material senses may testify otherwise. As we make this earnest acknowledgment, it is natural and necessary for us to strive to express more of God's perfect qualities in daily life, qualities such as loving-kindness, purity, patience, steadfastness, joy, wisdom, trust in God.

In this way you and I—in fact, anyone—can carry out the admonition of Paul and experience its rewards: "Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God"

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 154 from the Christian Science Hymnal (In Thee, O Spirit true and tender).