CHRISTIANITY, as it was understood and practised during the early Christian era, included not only the preaching of the gospel but the healing of the sick, and this healing meant not merely the overcoming of disease and pain, but the overcoming of sorrow, sin, and misery of every character.
The healing effect which resulted from an understanding of the gospel taught by Jesus, was in the nature of a proof of the correctness of his teaching, and it was this healing effect which differentiated his teaching from other religious systems then in vogue, and which attracted to it the attention of the civilized world. That Jesus regarded healing as such proof, is made evident when he said to the messengers from John that they should go and tell him the things they had seen,—"the blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, . . . and the deaf hear," apparently confident that such tangible evidence was irrefutable proof of his authority to do the works of the Father. That healing was also regarded as such proof by the early Christian church, is shown in the fact that those chosen to fill certain offices in the church were required to demonstrate or to give proof of their fitness or understanding.
Christian Science has come to restore and reestablish this healing Christianity as it was practised in the early church. While best known and most heard of because of the healing which follows even a slight understanding of its teaching, Christian Science is a purely religious teaching, in which the understanding and application of the truth gleaned from the Scriptures causes discord, whether manifested as sickness or as sin, to disappear as naturally as darkness disappears before light, this effect being the tangible evidence of the correctness of its doctrines.
