When Jesus told his disciples, who had failed to heal the epileptic boy, that such healing could be done only by "prayer and fasting," he stated a metaphysical fact, which is as true and applicable in the twentieth century as it was in the first. Likewise, the truth of the words written by Mrs. Eddy in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 355), "The present stage of progress in Christian Science presents two opposite aspects,—a full-orbed promise, and a gaunt want. The need, however, is not of the letter, but the spirit," seems, if anything, even more strikingly apparent to-day than when the words were written. The "full-orbed promise" is attested by the healing already accomplished by Christian Science; and the "gaunt want" is manifest in a world which is learning, through suffering, to turn away from its material gods for healing and comfort, and to seek and find a higher standard of living. The need, however, as Mrs. Eddy says, "is not of the letter, but the spirit;" and the spirit of the Christ is attained by what Jesus termed "prayer and fasting."
This prayer is the prayer of earnest desire, born of unselfed love for God and man. This fasting is not like that of John the Baptist and his disciples. It is not mere abstinence from material indulgences that makes a man more spiritual, but abstinence from material thinking. The fasting of John's disciples was a result of their belief in the reality of material phenomena and their power to deplete man's spirituality; but Jesus, fasting scientifically from the false belief in the reality of matter, was able to eat and drink with publicans and sinners without fear that his consciousness would thereby be defiled. If one understood this sufficiently, then matter would mean nothing to him; and any inordinate desire for material indulgence therein would become impossible. It was this same understanding of the unreality of matter which enabled Jesus to touch the leper and heal him instantaneously, and later to declare, "The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." This understanding of the unreality of matter, based upon the correlative fact of the allness of Spirit, is the spirit of the Christ and of Christian Science, which to-day is repeating the works of Jesus. In her book "Unity of Good" (p. 9), Mrs. Eddy writes: "What is the cardinal point of the difference in my metaphysical system? This: that by knowing the unreality of disease, sin, and death, you demonstrate the allness of God. This difference wholly separates my system from all others."
Healing in Christian Science is not a physical effect produced by mental means. It is the destruction, root and branch, of the belief of material existence, through the demonstration of the allness of God, Spirit; and this demonstration is attained through spiritualization of thought, and daily consecration to good. The ability to demonstrate this healing power depends on how far we have succeeded in destroying our own belief in materiality, for this is all that can ever seem to separate us from divine Principle, and prevent us from healing the sick. A Christian Science practitioner is one who has so far cast "the beam" of belief in matter out of his own eye as to see clearly enough to cast "the mote" out of the eye of his brother.
