THE Christian Science church is a healing institution. It is the most potent organized instrument for spiritual healing in the world. This spiritual healing is not a new invention. In all ages it has been practiced, in some degree, by those spiritually-minded persons who have perceived Truth clearly enough to utilize its beneficent law. This was true of certain of the Old Testament prophets who raised the dead and demonstrated supply. But this glorious healing by spiritual means came to its highest fulfillment in the life and works of Christ Jesus. And for nearly three centuries after Jesus' ascension, physical healing by spiritual means was considered an integral part of Christian activity.
When the effort was made, however, to pour Christianity into the creedal mold of political expediency, the spiritual consciousness necessary for doing the healing work was lost—to come to light again in Christian Science. That Jesus foresaw this recrudescence of spiritual healing is evidenced in his prophecy of the coming of the Comforter. After declaring that those who believed on him should do even greater works than he did, he said: "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever.... But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you." Christian Scientists understand this Comforter to be Christian Science.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, perceived the healing Principle of this Comforter, and its application to the needs of humanity, and gave to the world the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and other writings. She also organized The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts, and established the procedure for the organization of branch churches everywhere. Speaking of her first step in founding The Mother Church, she writes in the Manual of that Church (p. 17), "At a meeting of the Christian Scientist Association, April 12, 1879, on motion of Mrs. Eddy, it was voted,—To organize a church designed to commemorate the word and works of our Master, which should reinstate primitive Christianity and its lost element of healing."
