Every Christian Scientist is a practitioner if he puts into practice what he knows of the truth as revealed in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by the inspired Leader of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. But when a student of this Science of Christianity contemplates going into its public practice, he earnestly asks himself first what his motive is, and secondly if he has demonstrated the spiritual qualifications necessary to bring healing to those who will come to him.
What is the right motive for entering the public practice of Christian Science? May it not be described as a deep and tender compassion for the sick and suffering one, whose fear, ignorance, or sin has obscured his pure and perfect birthright, and a desire to bring healing to him through the spiritual understanding of man as the expression of God? Surely such a motive carries with it the blessing of a happy and successful outcome. With right motives, thought can rise to spiritual realization, and in spiritual realization we are conscious of the truth that in God's universe there is nothing to heal. All is well!
Having made certain that his motives are right, the one who would heal takes inventory of his demonstrated spiritual qualifications. To heal requires more than a desire to do so. It requires right thinking and right living. It requires a deep spiritual understanding of God and man and an illumination of the spiritual sense, which is heightened by an earnest and continuous study of the rules as given in Science and Health, and by conscientious and consecrated practice of those rules. So he asks himself if he is living the life which expresses his highest sense of the God-qualities. Can he honestly say that he is humbly willing to be guided in all that he does by divine wisdom insofar as it is unfolded to him? Is he eager to abandon self-will, self-love, self-justification, and self-righteousness and to reflect the tender compassion of divine Love? Can he rejoice and be grateful, no matter how arduous the warfare, that he is privileged to bind up the brokenhearted, heal the sick, and lead human consciousness away from its limited material concept of existence into the realization of man's true, glorious spiritual identity, which has ever been sinless, ageless, fearless, and harmonious? One so spiritually equipped should be ready to obey Jesus' commands (Mark 16: 15), "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature" and (Matt. 10:8), "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils."
