The cords of human sympathy have often been touched when loved ones who have read the Biblical promises and accounts of healing have petitioned their heavenly Father to restore them to health and usefulness, yet have continued to suffer, with no apparent answer to their prayers. Some sufferers, fearing that they may be asking amiss when they pray for health, add to their request, "If it be Thy will," believing that it may be a part of God's plan that they should suffer. Yet the Psalmist said, without qualification or reservation, "Bless the Lord, 0 my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." Those who have felt the healing touch of Truth through the ministrations of Christian Science long to tell every sufferer that God is the same yesterday, and today, and forever, and that the Psalmist's words are as true today as they were when they were first spoken.
As Jesus went about on the earth, he was moved with compassion for the sufferers about him, and he proved to those who were ready to be helped that sickness is not according to God's will. He healed all manner of disease, never doubting the power of God to deliver men from their distresses. He instructed his followers to heal as he did; and not only his disciples, but many who had not been with Jesus, and yet had believed, followed his example and healed the sick.
In these later days, Mary Baker Eddy was likewise touched by the evidences of suffering about her and devoted much of her life to the search for Truth, and, after her discovery of Christian Science, to the demonstration of the divine Principle of healing. For years she studied the Bible diligently and prayed for wisdom in order that she might present to the world the Science of Christian healing which she herself had proved. In the Preface to "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" she writes (p. xi), "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."
