What does Jesus mean when, in his commands to the disciples to teach and preach, he almost invariably enjoins them to "heal the sick"? and why is it that this part of the command is always ignored by our ministers in the pulpit and out of it, never noticing or commenting upon it? Why do we claim that the day of miracles is past, and the preachers put limitations upon their interpretation of "miracles "? For some days I have dwelt in the household of one whose daughter is a Christian Scientist, and I have met and known, personally, people who have been wonderfully cured, people whose diseases were not "imaginary," but were given up as incurable by eminent specialists; only yesterday a lady passed here twice who two weeks ago was said by her physicians to be dying with a cancer on the breast and was almost instantly healed. These I know, and the fact cannot be denied that they are healed. Now, all my training and education has been in the direction of believing this "Science" false and fraudulent, but how can I explain to myself or to others this strange thing that is taking place before my own eyes?
Jesus meant just what he said. The modern development of medical science is a good reason for the neglect you complain of by ministers, especially in view of the demands of other subjects, and the uncertainties of this subject. By "miracles" we understand operations contrary to experience, whose causes lie beyond human knowledge and control. In this sense, the day of miracles is not past. As to what you have seen in the field of "Christian Science," we admit that, after all needful allowance for quackery and exaggeration, there is a certain residuum of extraordinary facts which can neither be explained away nor as yet satisfactorily explained.—The Outlook, N. Y.
