Many thoughtful people have been led to the study of Christian Science through witnessing the healing by its means of various supposedly incurable diseases. These healings, some of which are reported in The Christian Science Journal and the Christian Science Sentinel, and later in various editions of The Herald of Christian Science, include tuberculosis, cancer, paralysis, blindness, and other visible manifestations of disease and impairment. It is evident to an unbiased observer that nothing less than divine power and law could produce such remarkable healings, and, perhaps with no other impulse than curiosity, one will study "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" together with the Bible to ascertain what is back of these phenomena. At first glance a statement on page 179 of this textbook may be puzzling to the student. There, in dealing with the subject of absent treatment, Mrs. Eddy says, "Immortal Mind heals what eye hath not seen." Remembering the healings he has witnessed, the student may ask, What does this statement mean?
Continued study of the textbook brings the answer to this and every other question. It is found that Christian Science, in healing sickness, deals with mental causes instead of physical effects; and it is found further that the human body is embraced in and obeys thought; that the body is never self-acting and is not the seat of consciousness, as had been supposed. Perhaps the student has noted that some honest doctors of medicine have stated their conclusions that many diseases are aggravated and even caused by abnormal mental states, albeit these same physicians continue to doctor the body. Evidently, in order to bring about the desired healings something more is required than the knowledge of the mental cause and nature of disease.
This requisite is furnished in the appealing and practical teaching about God given in Science and Health. Therein we learn that God, the underlying all-embracing and all-governing Principle of the universe, is good in nature, and therefore is good in expression; that the all-knowing creative intelligence is perfect Mind, all-pervading Spirit, immutable Truth, immortal Life, infinite divine Love. The practical application of these truths is indicated in this statement on page 339 of the textbook: "The basis of all health, sinlessness, and immortality is the great fact that God is the only Mind; and this Mind must be not merely believed, but it must be understood." Here, then, is the truth which acts as the corrective for all humanity's worries and woes, for its sins and sorrows—the truth which is the destroyer of disease and death.
