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.
