Sometimes we hear those to whom Christian Science is new, talking somewhat as follows: "I wonder why I do not get the healing. I have quit taking medicine, I am doing everything the practitioner asks me to do. I am told that others have been healed. If this is true, I cannot see why I am not healed." We are told in 2 Kings that there was a captain of the host of the king of Assyria, whose name was Naaman, that he was a great man with his master, and a mighty man of valor, but that he was a leper. This Naaman came with his horses, his servants, and his chariots and stood at the door of the prophet Elisha, to get healed. Elisha sent a messenger out to him, telling him to go and wash in the river Jordan seven times and that he should be cleansed. Naaman became wroth and wait away and said, "Behold, I thought, He will surely come out to me, and stand, and call on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, and recover the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? may I not wash in them, and be clean?" Then he turned and went away in a rage.
Perhaps some people think that they should be healed in the way they point out, and that to be healed by simply reading a book is absurd. This is the way Naaman thought and reasoned, but he had to come down from his way of thinking and doing before he was healed. He had had his own way of doing things all his life, but he did not get the healing, and now he must seek it in another way. One may not know what God's way is at first, but he must earnestly and honestly strive to find out what that way is. If we strive long enough, with the aid of Christian Science, we will surely be healed.
Many strive for the healing, and earnestly too, but in their own way, and thus the healing is delayed. Each should be able to know self, to look within, see his faults, and destroy them. Our text-book says, "The anatomy of Christian Science teaches when and how to probe the selfinflicted wounds of selfishness, malice, envy, and hate" (Science and Health, p. 462). To be able to do this is to be able to see these faults and if necessary to acknowledge them to others. It is good for each of us daily to turn on the searchlight of self-examination, and see if there is any lurking thought of hatred, envy, malice, or any other wrong thing which may be keeping us from realizing health and peace. It is sometimes very hard to admit that one has such thoughts, but there plays around the doorway of mortal consciousness some little fox who is seeking admittance to do mischief, but if we daily watch and pray we shall discover and destroy the error, whatever it may be. It is possible that through self-examination one might discover that he has been unkind,—it may be to an associate or employee in business, possibly to some one at home. Whatever the fault, it should be seen and destroyed so that it will never be repeated. If we want to have good health all the time we must work continually at the evangelization of self, the putting away of the old Adam self by substituting therefor humility, gentleness, love, righteousness.
To know one's self truly is to be and remain on the highway of prosperity, peace, and health. It is to be able to see the nothingness of the raging elements of hatred, of resentment, of retaliation, stalking forth hand in hand with self-justification, self-righteousness, but all going on to their utter extinction. Do we realize that the evil we think and do reacts against us until we have suffered in proportion to the amount of evil we have thought and acted? Do we remember that every thought we entertain will bring forth fruit after its kind? And do we wonder then, when we get sick, why it is, or why we do not at once get healed? We should strive to be as exact and accurate in our conduct and mode of living as we must be in mathematics itself. The laws of Christian Science, based on the laws of God, are very exacting in their demands for honesty, uprightness, propriety of all kinds, in business as well as in religion.
Jesus said. "Many lepers were in Israel in the time of Eliseus the prophet: and none of them was cleansed, saving Naaman the Syrian." The beginner, especially, must remember that he has not always loved God with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his mind. Heretofore he has been looking to drugs to heal him mayhap,—has been worshiping false gods,—and if he does not get into heaven, harmony, immediately he should not be discouraged, especially when he learns that there is much work to be done in the changing of his mentality. There was something that Naaman had to do before he could be healed, and there is something for every one to do before he can attain to health. It may be one thing, or another. In every case there is self to be overcome. It may not be the bathing in the river Jordan, but it must be the bathing in the "river of life" that washes us clean of sin.
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." That is, all the things which may be necessary and proper will be added here and now. If we are to get these in the right way, then, there is a condition attached: namely, that we seek "first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." We may be seeking first "all these things," hoping that the kingdom of God and His righteousness will be added a little later. It sometimes happens that those who do not get healed of some trouble within the limit of time which they have given God to heal them, will suddenly give up the search for Truth, at the same time saying that they have given Christian Science a trial and it did them no good. Possibly they may have been seeking first physical health, intending to wait for a more suitable day to seek God. If so, their thought is not the kind that is susceptible of drinking in the complete healing until it is changed. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." As in the parable, some seeds fall by the wayside and the fowls come and devour them up. Some fall upon stony places, some fall among thorns and the thorns spring up and choke them. Others fall into good ground and bring forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.
There are many cases of instantaneous healing in Christian Science, but whether it comes slow or fast, all who are in earnest attain health on a spiritual foundation which is permanent,—and with health of body they also have a peace which they would not barter for all the treasures of earth.
