NO thoughtful student of the life of Christ Jesus can follow him as he went about among the poor and suffering, who ofttimes actually blocked his way with their importunities, without being impressed with the intelligent, ever active, and efficient sympathy of his great heart. The official suppression and neglect of the commoner in those days, his extreme poverty, together with the general prevalence of leprosy and other dreadful diseases, sufficiently explain the fact that, as goon as the Master's good will and healing power became known, he was simply overwhelmed with calls for help, and in the freedom and fulness of his response he gave to history its most glorious page. It was an instance of unquestionable proof that "divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need" (Science and Health, p. 494).
The first and one of the chief ends, therefore, subserved by our Lord's demonstrations of spiritual healing was that of beneficence. They speak for the outflow and abundance of the divine compassion, and today the call for this same gospel is no less pitifully appealing. Subjection to unmerited suffering yet remains an appalling factor in the tragedy of human experience, and it cries out against the theological assumption that the healing work of Truth was a temporary necessity and not the manifestation of the unchanging impulse and activity of divine Love. When the Master sent forth his disciples equipped with conscious power, and commissioned them to heal the sick and cast out demons, he was surely disclosing the channels of a ministry that knows no limit of time or place. This is a fundamental teaching of Christian Science, that "Love never faileth;" that the saying, "I am come that they might have life," is blessedly true now.
This question of the naturalness and normality of the Master's exercise of healing power is far reaching, since in the realm of faith that which is unlooked for, unaccepted as the phenomena of a reigning law, remains forever unsought, and one of the heaviest handicaps of spiritual aspiration in the Christian world is found in the fact that, as the result of an educated misapprehension, the many do not look to the heavenly Father as immediately disposed to be their good Samaritan and rescue them from malcondition which are entirely beyond human betterment. The present availability of divine Love is thus practically denied, and this necessarily constitutes an impassable gulf in the way of spiritual effort which might otherwise prove successful. Christian Science has come to declare and demonstrate the larger worth of Christ Jesus' healing work,— that it is necessary today because it is the one satisfying portion for suffering humanity. From the day of her illumination this possibility of ministry awakened a mighty impulse and determination in the heart of our Leader. Speaking of it, she writes, "The motive of my earliest labors has never changed. It was to relieve the sufferings of humanity" (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 30): and to this compassionate endeavor her every student has been commended with an earnest and loving urgency. Christian Science means first and last Christian service, the bringing of a sweet new day of comfort and hope to the afflicted, and he who is not moved by a great and abiding desire to fulfil this mission, knows little of the inspiring aim and loving impulses of the true Scientist.
