THOSE who seek help through the loving ministrations of Christian Science frequently experience instantaneous healing, finding their need immediately met, even as in the time of Jesus, his apostles, and the early Christian church. In fact, such healing is the standard set by the Master for all who would name themselves his followers as Christians. It is well that this standard be not lost sight of by Christian Scientists to-day. So often we may seem to fall short of it, so many times finding it necessary to give not one, but many treatments before healing is manifested! Strictest watchfulness is therefore needed, lest we be beguiled by mortal mind into acceptance of the belief that there is some right reason for slow healing. Mrs. Eddy did not think so; neither did Jesus, as witness these words of our Leader on pages 11 and 12 of "Unity of Good": "Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities. He said that the kingdom of heaven is here, and is included in Mind; that while ye say. There are yet four months, and then cometh the harvest, I say, Look up, not down, for your fields are already white for the harvest; and gather the harvest by mental, not material processes."
How often have experienced students of Christian Science looked back upon their early experiences in this truth, when hope seemed so bright and faith so buoyant! Is there any genuine reason why this vigorous, uplifted, and refreshing condition of thought should be lost? Is not its loss the very thing which the angel of the church of Ephesus was warned against in the words: "Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works"? Where, then, does the trouble lie? What is the reason for the delayed healing? It must be found in some failure to obey strictly the rules and rudiments of Christian Science, an insufficient confidence in the power of Truth to do the needed work, a lack of faith in the treatment as the very Word of God, or a failure to recognize "that it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being," as we are told on page 496 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.
Genuine Christian Science healing is the manifestation of the activity in consciousness of the Christ, Truth. It is the effect of the perception and application of spiritual Truth to the excision of erroneous material belief; and specific application of this truth is essential to the gaining of one's release from the enslaving tentacles of error. The apparent necessity for more than one treatment should be evidence to the alert Scientist that he has failed to allow the Christ, or true idea, to overcome erroneous belief sufficiently in his own thought. Then, with more love and humility in his heart, with steadfast perseverance and sincerity, he will go over the mental ground again, carefully checking all his thoughts, eliminating those which are not Christlike, and embracing more closely those that express divine Principle. It is the genuine spirituality of a Christian Scientist which enables him to heal; in other words, it is the degree to which he is allowing the Christ to control his thinking that gauges his healing ability.
