A Sickroom becomes the schoolroom of Christ when it is transformed by Christian Science. The nurse, as a member of The Mother Church, is required by our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, to possess the ability to demonstrate Christian Science healing as well as practical skill in caring for the sick. These and other safeguards for the quality of thought which should surround the so-called sick are given with authority of the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy, in Article VIII, Section 31.
Obeying her Leader, the nurse taking part in Christian Science healing has an opportunity for threefold blessing as she learns daily from the schoolmaster, Christ —a blessing for the Cause of Christian Science, for her patient, and for herself. Measuring her work only by this threefold yardstick of spiritual values, she rejoices in the realization that the Cause of Christian Science and her patient, as well as she herself, are prospering together.
"To look after carefully so as to promote growth" is one dictionary definition of the verb "nurse." In "Rudimental Divine Science" Mrs. Eddy explains how trials prove God's care when she writes (p. 11), "Sickness is the schoolmaster, leading you to Christ; first to faith in Christ; next to belief in God as omnipotent; and finally to the understanding of God and man in Christian Science, whereby you learn that God is good, and in Science man is His likeness, the forever reflection of goodness."
