Nineteen centuries ago there appeared the most remarkable healer of disease this planet has ever known. Not one drug did he prescribe. His treatment included no element of mental suggestion or hypnotism. He was never known to recommend massage or dependence upon any hygienic program. That he considered the cause of all human discord to be mental, or what the Scripture calls "the carnal mind," is evidenced in such a statement as this, recorded in the seventh chapter of Mark's Gospel (20-23): "That which cometh out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts." Then Christ Jesus proceeds to catalogue some of mankind's unlovely thinking, and adds, "All these evil things come from within, and defile the man." Once, he met one whom he had healed of an infirmity of long standing, and bade him sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto him (John 5: 14).
The student cannot escape the conclusion, therefore, that since Jesus recognized the cause of disease as mental, he dealt with the problems of discord and disease from a spiritually mental standpoint. But he did not for a moment teach that his healing work was the result of one human mind controlling another mortal mind. He stated plainly that his heavenly Father, God, did all the mighty works, for without Him he, the Master, could do nothing.
The Bible records that the great Teacher and healer soon gave his immediate disciples instruction in the mighty work of spiritual healing, and in the Acts of the Apostles we find inspiring examples of their accomplishment along this line of Christian ministry. And is it not a recognized fact that spiritual healing was not an unfamiliar occurrence in the first two or three hundred years after Jesus?
