The Washington herald., 1912-04-29

ana meals the SICK IS an Absolute fafth
that all things are possible to Coda
spiritual understanding of Him. an un-
selfed love"
This absolute faith, or spiritual un-
derstanding. although producing physi-
cal as well as mental and moral re-
suits, cannot be based on the testimony
of physical sense, but must find its sat
isfaetion in the things which are not
seen. 1t entails cultivation of right
thinking and of spiritual perception; no
haphazard, blind belief will bring the
answer to our prayer, but knowing.
or science of God, is the indispensable
foundation for successful prayer To
pray with this understanding is to pray
Alright This is the effectual prayer,
the prayer of faith" which James as
sures US Shall save the sick" as well
as reform the sinner.
MATERIAL METHODS.
Now, in contradistinction to this
method of healing the sick by spiritual
means what can we say of the prevail
ing method? How does it compare
with the example set by Jesus, His
disciples, and apostles and by the early
Christians for some three or four hun
dred years after the crucihxion?
The prevailing method of healing the
sick treats man as a material mechan-
ism, and not as a thinking being. gov
erned by God The attempt to heal
man by treating him as matter has re-
suited in a succession of experiments,
but has never established an enduring,
final, or truly scientific method of de-
stroying disease.
The history of these experiments,
from the earliest times to the present
day, should make thoughtful men and
women pause. Christian Scientists
yield to no one in giving due credit to
the good men in all ages who have de-
voted their lives in an endeavor to heal
the sick by material means. They hon
or their motive while disagreeing with
their methods. But every thinker
should recognize that the practice of
material medicine has failed to dis
close the true cause of disease. The
effects of disease on the physique are
apparent, but the attempt to find the
cause in matter has failed for the sim
pie reason that the cause is not material
but mental.
Every material substance on the
earth or under the earth has, at one
time or another, been ground up in
mortars and administered as medicine,
in pellets or in powders. There has
been a multiplicity of schools. There
have been diametrically opposite ways
of treating the same disease No pro-
fession has experienced such violent
! changes as that which attempts to heal
by material means; no textbooks be-
fcome so quickly antiqusted as those
which deal with these same remedies;
and all this because the attempt has
been persistently made to treat man
as material organism instead of
thinking being. 1t is not too much to
say that in spite of the arduous labors
of millions of devoted men spread over
thousands of years and applied to lit
orally billions of cases, the attempt to
find the true cause of disease in mat
ter is still as far from success as ever.
But Christian Science, recognizing
man as mental being. governed by
God. is able to heal cases of disease
which have dehed every known ma
terial remedy.
NO INCURABLE EVIL.
Christian Science proves that no evil
is real, eternal. or incurable, but all
evil has its source in the carnal mind,
the mind of mortals, and can be made
TO yield to the divine Mind, God, the
Almighty. when mankind fulflls the
terms of cure and forgiveness. No
matter what form evil may take,
whether it manifests itself as moral,
mental, or physical, as an inherited
tendency or idiosyncrasy, as loss of fac
ulties, as an apparently inveterate habit
or uncomfortable appetite, as progress
sive disease, organic or inorganic, func-
tional, acute, OF chronic, the infinite,
omnipotent Mind is equal to every
emergency and willingly masters every
phase of error as mankind complies
with Gods ways. Should the evil to
be eradicated have been. pronounced in
durable by expert medical opinion, by
the wisest, most humane of physicians,
even then that opinion would stand for
naught before God, and the divine
Mind which made everything that was
made and saw that It was good, would
still be sufficient saviour from and
healer of that particular evil in re-
sponse to the prayer of righteousness
ior right understanding. Or, should So
called natural laws decree decrepitude
or breakdown as the result of over
work, trying climate, or any other sup
posed cause, the spiritual understand
ino of God Nro,,ld stiti he ays;IahI. -