Healing—a cause for rejoicing! And from early biblical times many have recognized the evidence of healing through prayer as the certain symbol of God's presence and love. His supreme power, operating in human experience with the force of divine law, has moved—and removed—mountains when sickness and pain have loomed up. Sincere, patient followers of the Christ, Truth, can find that consecrated prayer for healing and regeneration is answered.

Perhaps the most dread disease on record in Bible history was leprosy. The sufferer was an outcast. No one, it seemed, cared for the leper. And yet there were instances of spiritual healing that surely gave evidence of divine care—signifying a higher source of healing comfort than anything offered by ritualistic religion or medicine. The prophet Elisha once healed a prominent citizen of leprosy nearly three thousand years ago. ^{See II Kings 5:1-14 .} The divine law had superseded what seemed a physical law and wiped out its apparent effects. Spiritual healing demonstrates mortal "laws" of disease to be erroneous; there is no law of disease.

It is further recorded that when Christ Jesus ministered to the people centuries later, he healed a number of leprosy cases, including, on one occasion, ten lepers at the same time. One of these certainly appreciated the significance of his healing as a confirmation of God's reality and power. He saw his healing as a sign and glorified God. ^{See Luke 17:15 .}

As Jesus sent his twelve apostles out to spread the word of Truth, they were also to take the sign of healing with them. Again, this would be proof of the actuality of God's kingdom come—the kingdom of Spirit. "And as ye go," Jesus commanded, "preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give." ^{Matt. 10:7,8.}

Shortly after this, John the Baptist sent two of his own students to Jesus to inquire whether the Messiah had finally come. Here as well, the Saviour turned them to the sign of divine Love's ever-presence: "Jesus answered and said unto them, Go and shew John again those things which ye do hear and see: the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them." ^{Matt. 11:4, 5.}

Many early Christians carried forward this healing ministry. Yet, as the centuries went on, prayer-based healing, as an integral aspect of religious devotion, was virtually excluded from common practice by ritual and dogma. Then, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, a discovery was made. Christian healing had not been forever lost to mankind. In fact, the actual Science of spiritual healing was revealed in the teachings and practice of Christian Science. Mary Baker Eddy offered this tested truth to the world in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, published first in 1875. Healing has again proved to be the sign of God's care—the sign that the Comforter has come to redeem mankind. (And the admonition of Jesus to his twelve apostles is imprinted, for every reader to ponder, on the cover of each copy of Science and Health: "Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.")

For more than a century the record of Christian Science healing has been providing cumulative substantiation of God's love and omnipotence, and the continuing practice of that healing is the test of our own fidelity to the law of Love. We may want to ask ourselves not only, Are we being healed? but, Are we healing? Are we putting into practice—freely giving—in an equal or greater measure what has already been bestowed on us through the grace of God? The same grace of God gives to all a generous capacity to heal as well as be healed.

The Christian Science textbook presents this observation: "The prophet of to-day beholds in the mental horizon the signs of these times, the reappearance of the Christianity which heals the sick and destroys error, and no other sign shall be given." ^{Science and Health, p. 98.} In considering healing as the sign of God's presence and power, Mrs. Eddy has also included here the destruction of error as the coincident effect of the "reappearance" of Christ's Christianity.

Elsewhere in Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy expands this point. "To-day," she writes, "the healing power of Truth is widely demonstrated as an immanent, eternal Science, instead of a phenomenal exhibition. Its appearing is the coming anew of the gospel of 'on earth peace, good-will toward men.'" ^{Ibid., p. 150.} Mrs. Eddy goes on to show that, as in Jesus' own time, the signs of physical healing do indeed bear witness to an even more important purpose for our work as his disciples—the extermination of sin.

Healing in Christian Science is not an emotional display designed to impress the human mind. It is designed to redeem it. Christian Science healing brings a quiet, steady assurance to the heart that one is not alone nor separated from good—that the Christ is here, already and always, to set us free. It is a sign for rejoicing that God so cares for man!

WILLIAM E. MOODY