THE first glad impulse of those set free from sin and sickness through Christian Science is the desire to pass the healing cup to others. This outgoing of loving gratitude forms the endless chain which is linking the world in a vital consciousness of the fatherhood and motherhood of God, and the brotherhood and sisterhood of man. Mrs. Eddy says, "The student who heals by teaching and teaches by healing, will graduate under divine honors" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 358). The wise student, therefore, knowing that Christian Science healing results from divine Principle understood and demonstrated, sets about correcting the false concept of God which has held humanity in bondage to sin, sickness, and death, and thus is unfolded that true idea of God and man's relation to Him which gives freedom from the pains and sorrows of sense.
Probably no two people hold exactly the same concept of God. yet by most persons He is regarded as being apart from man. All seem to hold a masculine concept of Him, regarding Him as Father, and this incomplete concept is responsible for much of the sorrow and loneliness of a yearning, hungry-hearted world. Christian Science, however, teaches that God is both Father and Mother, and shows that the nature of God is feminine as well as masculine. We may well wonder why this fact has so long been hidden, when we have in the Bible the self-explanatory statement. "God created man in his own image, . . . male and female created he them."
When the sick seek healing, it is not difficult to teach them that because man is the image and likeness of God, he is the manifestation of eternal Life, for God is Life, or to bring them to realize how flawless the divine Life must be. When the sinful are seeking freedom from sin, they are more readily brought to understand God as the one Mind, perfect, pure, and holy; that because man is the likeness of God, he is the likeness of the Mind that is sinless and undefiled; that because man is the manifestation of God, he has no other mind than God, and can n more be separated from this source than a sun-ray can be separated from its source. The realization of this brings to each the supply for his own particular need.
