Christ Jesus was the pioneer Christian. He blazed a new trail. Through a hostile wilderness of Pharisaical creeds, persecution, and doubt he pressed forward to found his church and prove his healing work. With specific proofs of God's power, Jesus marked out a new way of thinking and living. It was the Christly way to health, happiness, well-being, salvation— the kingdom of heaven. It was the way of deliverance from the mortal sense of life in matter, and it was a way open for all men. It was a sending forth into all the world of a new message of healing and salvation from all mortal woes.
A pioneer was originally a foot soldier who opened the way for others. In new fields of thinking the pioneer breaks through barriers of ignorance, fear, limitation, and superstition.
In the early days of their healing work in Christian Science, the followers of Mary Baker Eddy went forth from door to door, from city to city, from nation to nation. There was a pioneer zeal and enthusiasm in the way they spread the healing gospel of Christian Science. Alive with spiritual power and with healing works as proof of their faith and understanding, these early followers of Mrs. Eddy were reopening the pioneer trail of the early Christians. They were responding to the call which Mrs. Eddy sets forth in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," where she asks (p. 37), "When will Jesus' professed followers learn to emulate him in all his ways and to imitate his mighty works?"'
