THE burden of proof, as the phrase is used in judicial procedure, signifies the duty which rests upon him who affirms, to prove the truth of his contention. This eminently just rule should, it would seem, have the same application to the practice of religion as it has to the observance of the laws of the land; for the Bible plainly tells us that "faith without works is dead."
The word "demonstration," which in its application to Christian Science stands for proof, often seems incomprehensible to those not yet accustomed to scientific religion; nevertheless, the term is employed in its most correct sense in the Authorized Version of the Bible, wherein the Apostle Paul writes: "And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." In differing phrase, but in perfect harmony with Paul's declaration, Mary Baker Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 342), "The hour has struck when proof and demonstration, instead of opinion and dogma, are summoned to the support of Christianity, 'making wise the simple.'"
Christ Jesus, who is justly entitled the master Metaphysician, is acknowedged by Christians as the most successful healer of disease that the world has ever known. It is a notable fact that in preparing his disciples for their public ministry he charged them not only to preach the gospel but to heal the sick. In fact, he applied the same test to all who should profess a belief in his teachings, when he said: "And these signs shall follow them that believe; . . . they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover."
