THE divine Principle of Christian healing, as taught and practiced by Christ Jesus and as revealed to modern thought through the discovery of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy, not only offers the assurance of ultimate salvation, but specifies the exact terms upon which relief from the ills of the flesh can be attained here and now. The essential requirements of this method of healing are implicit in the Scriptures, but it was not until the advent of Christian Science that elucidation of them became sufficiently explicit for their application to modern needs.
In the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy gives a comprehensive summary of Jesus' method of healing when she says on page 52, "The 'man of sorrows' best understood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love." It is evident that these two essentials of the Master's teachings and practice must have been deeply impressed upon his disciples, for in effect they are reiterated throughout the Gospels, and Paul repeats them frequently in the epistles which bear his name. In the Gospel of John, for example, the beloved disciple records these words of the Master: "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life." Certainly this profound utterance implies the fundamental meaning that Mrs. Eddy expresses in the above quotation. When these two cardinal points of divine healing are recognized as correlative, it becomes apparent why spiritual healing was virtually lost by the Christian church for so many centuries, and why it became necessary to rediscover and reestablish it.
In her determined efforts to rend the veil of materialism, which had for so long obscured the true meaning of the sacred Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy labored long, and often in the face of intense opposition, before she could gain an audience which would listen to the statement that matter is unreal. It was through her success in the healing of the sick on the basis of Christian Science, however, that she first won the attention of those who had need of healing.
