After Mary Baker Eddy discovered Christian Science she devoted years of the most patient work to testing and proving its efficacy in the healing of all manner of evil. Sickness, disease, sin, sorrow, and lack yielded to the healing power of God through her unfolding spiritual understanding of the Science she discovered. Pupils were taught, and they in turn were able to do the healing work. Then, in the year 1879, came the founding of her Church, which was, as she has stated in the Manual (p.17), "designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."
Thus, the very basis of the Christian Science church organization is that of healing. This healing is all-inclusive. The alleviation of bodily ills is the mere starting point. Mrs. Eddy has stated in "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 2): "Healing physical sickness is the smallest part of Christian Science. It is only the bugle-call to thought and action, in the higher range of infinite goodness. The emphatic purpose of Christian Science is the healing of sin."So, we see today the healing work of Christian Science spreading its beneficent wings over the earth, bringing illimitable joy and peace to troubled humanity.
At this hour of the history of the world, amidst the stress of much material activity, there is a vital need for this healing ministry, this Science of Christ, or Christian Science. In contemplating the various activities of our Church as set forth in the Manual we see that woven into the whole fabric of the organization is the work of healing. The Sunday services and Wednesday evening meetings open wide their doors to the seeker after Truth, as also do our Reading Rooms. The Christian Science lectures definitely awaken the receptive thought; and the authorized books and periodicals, including The Christian Science Monitor, are veritable missionaries to the far corners of the earth. All these activities are directly preparatory to, and actually are, a part of the healing work. Class teaching is another function that has for one of its objectives the fitting of students to become practitioners of Christian Science.
