UNTIL the advent of Christian Science, the Christian world was asleep to the fact that "power belongeth unto God." It fell far short of giving all power to right thought, even while declaring that God is omnipotent. It had failed to grasp the spiritual fact of one infinite Mind, and this Mind good and not evil. Evil was considered a necessary factor in human experience, and was endowed with a secondary power sufficient at times to defeat the purposes of infinite good. This woful misconception of mental power had led thought into all sorts of idolatry, wherein matter and its supposed laws were upheld as the benefactors of humanity. The great healing and redemptive force of divine Love was side-tracked, and the unchristian belief of life and intelligence in matter was given the right of way in human consciousness. Thus it was that so-called evil and sinful thought was allowed to crowd out a true sense of power as belonging to God or good only. Thus it was that the sacred word of God was lost sight of, and its potency to heal and uplift humanity relegated to a dead past.
The advent of Christian Science marks a new era in the history of the spoken word. It calls attention to the fact that the word of God was always accompanied with power to heal in the time of Jesus and his apostles; that it was not looked upon by the early Christians as a passive or inactive force. And, by way of positive confirmation of its unchanging power for good, Christian Science is today healing the sick and reforming the sinner, thereby resurrecting human thought from the thraldom of material sense to the plane of enlightened or spiritual understanding. Innumerable cases of healing have resulted from preaching the word in Christian Science, and the beneficent results of this preaching of the gospel of healing are too practical and comprehensive to cause any shadow of doubt as to their source.
The author of the Christian Science text-book, Science and Health, made a most thorough test of her discovery before trying to explain Christian Science to the world. She proved in numerous instances that the "word was with power" to heal instantaneously, to correct the misguided senses of mortals and to lead them out of sin into improved physical and moral conditions. She proved it efficacious to raise the dying and to cast out demons. In "No and Yes" (p. 2) she makes the statement that she has "healed more disease by the spoken than the unspoken word." What higher tribute could be paid to the memory of him who healed the sick and raised the dead through the power of the spoken word? Jesus said that those who understood his teaching should be able to perform the works that he did. Mrs. Eddy has proven the immortality of his words, and thousands of her students, through her practical exegesis of the Master's teaching, have been enabled to speak the word with power, and the healing signs of a practical and vitalizing religion have followed.
