The consistent practice of Christian Science results in physical as well as mental and moral healing. This practice now, as in Christ Jesus' time, involves a yielding of the material sense of man to the understanding and demonstration of man's perfect, spiritual identity as the image and likeness of God.

I had an opportunity to prove the healing power of Christian Science when I severely injured my ankle. As evening approached, the injury was very evident and the pain became more severe. I was visiting in a distant city and was scheduled to return home by airplane the next morning. Anxious, fearful thoughts took over: "What if it is broken? How will I ever be able to walk down the long corridors of both airports? How will I drive my car when I get home?" These mental arguments were compounded by self-condemnation: "It's my fault. I should have been more alert," and so forth.

When I retired I kept twisting and turning in bed, trying to find a comfortable position. Finally I resorted to putting a pillow under the ankle. As I did, words came to me as clearly as if they had been spoken aloud: "You'll never find comfort in matter."

What an awakening! I began to reason: "The only place I will ever find true comfort and peace is in the understanding of God, Spirit, and His perfect, spiritual creation." Instantly I recognized that the pain was not in the ankle but in the agonizing thoughts I had been entertaining. I removed the pillow and took a firm mental stand. I resolved to refuse to accept another fearful or condemning thought. From my study of Christian Science I knew that the way to accomplish this was to keep my consciousness filled with pure thoughts from God, divine Mind.

As I lay quietly in bed, I was reassured of my immutable, spiritual perfection by recalling many statements of truth I had memorized over a period of years from the Bible, and Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. For quite a while one truth followed another, strengthening my understanding of God and His creation.

Suddenly I heard my alarm clock ringing. It was morning! I had fallen asleep conscious of the truth. When I arose to get dressed, I realized I was completely healed. There was not even a trace of the swelling or discoloration that had appeared so alarming the night before.

My trip home was spent in being grateful to God for the healing. In retrospect I could see how fear, pain, self-will, and self-condemnation had yielded step by step to the revealed Word of God. Under the direction of divine Mind, suffering mortal thinking had given place to the orderly unfoldment of Mind's comforting ideas. Mrs. Eddy writes: "The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind." ^{Science and Health, p. 162.} In "the harmony of the divine Mind" there is no disorder, no pain.

It was proved to me that spiritualization of consciousness results in physical healing. As the constrictive, restrictive nature of material-mindedness yields to the health-giving forces of the divine Mind, man's freedom from the bondage of the material senses is demonstrated.

When one is willing to turn from the false testimony of the material senses to seek healing through spiritual understanding, he is turning to Christ, Truth. Christ is the healing power of God, ever present in individual consciousness. The Christ is ceaselessly revealing itself, revealing the true idea of God and His reflection, man. It is Christ, Truth, that awakens mankind from the mesmeric belief of pleasure or pain in matter. Christ Jesus said to those who believed on him and kept his word, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." ^{John 8:32.} This promise is as valid today as it was twenty centuries ago.

It makes no difference what form evil assumes, it cannot maintain itself in the light of Truth. Fear, ignorance, sin, disease, even death, begin to disappear in the radiancy of divine Life, Truth, and Love. Suffering must yield to the harmony and peace of the Christ, man's true, spiritual selfhood.

Paul reminds Christians of what they have been taught: "That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; and be renewed in the spirit of your mind; and that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." ^{Eph. 4:22-24.} The old way of thinking about ourselves and others as sinning, suffering mortals with a beginning and an ending is fraught with fear and painful insecurity. This thinking—and living—is the "old man" that must be put off. The "new man" that must be put on is found in Christ, and is God's ideal, "created in righteousness and true holiness."

The many accounts of Christ Jesus' healings recorded in the Bible show conclusively that it was his Christliness, his oneness with God, that attracted and healed mankind. What people called miracles—Jesus' victories over sin, disease, and death by spiritual means alone—were so many instances of the material sense of existence yielding to the presence of the Christ—the unreal and temporal yielding to the real and eternal. Jesus proved scientifically that the Christ way is the way to healing.

Those engaged in true Christian healing today are proving that Christ, the idea of God, is the law of harmony to every human experience. It is the law of good demonstrating the supremacy of divine Mind in healing both mortal mind and body. Mrs. Eddy writes, "If sickness and death came through mind, so must they go; and are we not right in ruling them out of mind to destroy their effects upon the body, that both mortal mind and mortal body shall yield to the government of God, immortal Mind?" ^{Christian Healing, pp. 17-18.}

The practice of Christian Science brings every thought and action into harmony with the divine Mind. It demonstrates the Science of Christ or true Christianity. The result is Christian healing.