The instantaneous demonstration of divine Principle was the great characteristic of the Master's ministry. Whenever and wherever the human need legitimately presented itself, there and then did Jesus prove the availability of spiritual law. Neither time nor place was reckoned with, for Jesus dealt solely with the present necessity. The Biblical records of healing go to prove that reliance on climate, diet, or drugs was eschewed by Christ Jesus, who is the Way-shower for all time. Recognizing that discord is the product of mortal mind, Jesus paid no heed to the body but released the sufferer from his false belief.
All Christians should find the key to their Master's prompt demonstrations of dominion over error. Since divine Mind is forever radiating its wide blessings without let or hindrance; since Love gives impartially and never withholds, is it not evident that a delay is sometimes due to a lack of understanding of how to yield to divine Principle? Jesus knew the unreality of evil, but do we sometimes measure the mote in our brother's eye through the beam in our own eye? Neither pride nor dishonesty can compromise with divine Principle. Jesus was promptly obedient in thought, word, and deed. He dealt with error from the standpoint of Truth, and so ruled it out. Proving himself impervious to temptation, he always remained serenely conscious of the oneness of Mind and its idea. No matter how insistent the false evidence of the senses, no matter how great the test of his understanding, Christ Jesus never tarried or dallied, but yielded prompt allegiance to Principle. The long hours spent in prayer and fasting in communion with Truth enabled him to think truly even in the midst of apparent evil. Jesus knew that sin and sickness, together with all their material accompaniments, were mere shadows of human belief; and he understood that in the infinite "Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" these seeming shadows have no abiding place.
His disciples, however, still believed in materialism, hence in its limitations. When apparently faced with a hungry multitude in a desert place, fear and ignorance betrayed them into beseeching their Master to "send the multitude away, that they may go into the villages, and buy themselves victuals." What depth of spiritual insight and tenderness underlay the Master's simple reply: "They need not depart; give ye them to eat." It is as though he had said: Mind is unceasingly expressing its abundance through spiritual man, everywhere. Why, then, need they depart to neighboring villages? Throughout the experience which followed, Mind's supply was demonstrated and none fell short, for "whatever blesses one blesses all, as Jesus showed with the loaves and the fishes,—Spirit, not matter, being the source of supply," as Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 206). When the belief in lack of any kind is destroyed by Truth, then God does indeed furnish a table in the wilderness.
Just as naturally is divine Mind giving abundant health to every object in creation, and none need depart to another place in order to find health. Health is a spiritual and universal fact, and available alike to every individual who feels the touch of Truth. It cannot be limited any more than can Mind's supply in any other direction. It is maintained by spiritual law, and is not subject to any variableness, for the only true health is the reflection of the one Mind, God. Ill health, so called, is an impossibility in God's creation, and it is only through banishing this false belief that we can banish its baneful bodily effects. Jesus healed the multitude wherever they sought him. He knew that there is no desert place,— no place deserted by divine Love. He further knew that spiritual creation is present and only seems veiled from sight through the mist of fear and false belief, and this veil is done away in Christ, Truth. Thus whether the picture presenting itself to Jesus was that of a sick man or a hungry man, he demonstrated supply that same hour. The material sense of time and place are mere beliefs, neither of which has any inherent power either to help or to hinder scientific demonstration.
In its search for health humanity's faith has been diverted from God, Spirit, into reliance on material and fluctuating systems of medicine. Individuals having been taught to regard themselves as material beings, subordinated to a body whose vagaries can only be controlled by means of drugs or, what is worse, by will power, it is not surprising that they should seek to establish health by means of operations and rest cures, through diet, electricity, massage, or tonics. Is it not a fact that the average individual relies on anything and everything rather than on the power of Spirit? Sometimes doctors, in an endeavor to bring about healing, prescribe a change of place. This affords mortal mind but a momentary diversion and utterly fails to reach and destroy the fear and error casting their shadow in the form of bodily diseases. All material methods, similarly, leave the patient's thought unchanged. Indeed these methods, through centering thought on the body, intensify the sense of materialism and fear which are the taproots of the trouble.
The sufferer who decides that he will rely on Christian Science learns to think in a radically different manner. He finds that all discord is due to a sense of materiality, and that he may, indeed that he must, turn his back on old standards of thought, discard material reliance of every kind, and step freely out into the sunlight of divine reality and harmony. He learns to open his eyes and gaze on the green pastures which are, and have ever been, before him. He learns that the bodily discord is due to error of thought, and he finds that error must be faced and conquered in thought. With rejoicing he learns that "the real man cannot depart from holiness" (Science and Health, p. 475), and that the healing takes place just in proportion as one realizes that man is not material, but spiritual. He learns that false belief is no part of his true selfhood as Mind's idea, and from the first he learns to identify himself with that alone which emanates from God, for this alone is God's likeness.
Provided one departs radically and continually from old ways of thinking, no other departure is necessary, no visit to hospital or cure, no weary waiting for future release in some other sphere; but a humble and glad approach to that God of love who, as the psalmist tells us, forgives all iniquities and heals all diseases. Reliance on time is another mistake which we must seek to correct through more direct and prompt obedience to Principle. Even a newly acquired understanding of Christian Science begets more enlightenment and more striking improvements than many years lived without any knowledge of Truth. It is only as we gain that knowledge that we simultaneously learn what constitutes man in the likeness of his Maker. God does not keep us waiting; it is the mortal sense which loiters and temporizes with error. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." What does it mean to accept this day of salvation? And what, on the other hand, does it mean to reject it? To reject it means that we cling to old fears and superstitions, that we argue for ill health or sin, expect disaster, insist that God sends suffering and death, and so hug erroneous views of both God and man.
And what does it mean to accept the present day of salvation? It means that we have reached the crossroads and intend to choose this day whom we will serve. Choosing rightly, we shall honestly subject every false belief to the crucible of Truth; we shall seek the reflection of that Love which blots out fear, dissolves pride, puts resignation, lethargy, procrastination, and compromise to flight, and silences every suggestion of doubt, discouragement, and unbelief. To accept the day of salvation entails parting with error instead of hugging it through fear or sympathy. It entails seeking Truth with joy and untiring zeal. It brings to us boundless faith and expectancy of good.
This choice of the straight and narrow way uncovers and conquers all belief in materialism in both its alarming and its alluring forms. It leads us to accept with equal honesty the demands and the promises of divine Principle. It shows us that we must claim no other origin and no other inheritance than that of God, Spirit. It teaches us to cease from brooding over the mortal "whose breath is in his nostrils," and to look, rather, ''unto the rock" whence we "are hewn," as the Bible teaches. To accept the glorious day of salvation means conquering all that is unlike God, seeking no other departure than the departure from error, and drawing daily nearer to the one creator, divine Love, who, we are told in the Scriptures, "saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."
