MRS. EDDY tells us in Science and Health (p. 241), that "the error of the ages is preaching without practice" and no preacher ever did more to correct this error than she has done. Her life's work has included such a correlation of preaching and practice that the world has not seen the like since the days of the Prophet of Galilee. Through a long and laborious career she sought to restore and reestablish the healing work which Christ Jesus did and commanded his followers to do. It had become proverbial that preaching was divorced from practice, so that the ancient taunt had found a modern application, "Like people, like priest, "—an old proverb with a new meaning.
It might be considered extreme to say that the pulpit is sometimes occupied by atheists and agnostics to the exclusion of the expositor and evangelist, but too often, alas, is it taken by the "doubting Thomas, " whose attitude to anything like healing activity is one of open incredulity. One who might be considered typical in this respect said to the writer, "I do not believe that the Almighty could use me to be a channel for healing any one. On the other side of the grave, perhaps, I may see the works you speak of, but I never expect to see them here. If one told me he was healed through Christian Science, I should consider him a crank." What can be said of a minister who takes up such an attitude? Where is the logic of such a position? Where is the consistency in shutting one's eyes to facts that age well known and easily authenticated? Are we not justified in saying that the habit of incredulity in regard to healing works is responsible for this attitude and that this habit arises from the error of preaching without practice?
The same might as truly be said of others who take their cue from the ministry. For instance, a dear friend remarked, "We could not think of trying Christian Science, because we are devoted Methodists." To this the writer replied, "Then the Christian Scientists must be better Methodists than you are, because no one can be a true Methodist without following John Wesley, and he spent his long life in healing the sick and restoring the sinful, to the utmost of his understanding." It is true, of course, that Wesley often used material remedies, but his best healing work, both for himself and others, was done under the stimulus of faith in God. No one can read his "Journal" without being struck by this fact. In the Preface to his work on "Primitive Physic," he says, "By the unspeakable joy and perfect calm, serenity and tranquillity, the love of God gives the mind, it becomes the most powerful of all the means of health and long life." From this it is evident that the founder of Methodism realized the aid to health of a peaceful, quiet mind, and had that condition been typical of his followers in these later days, they could never have questioned the work undertaken by Mrs. Eddy.
