At one time a baking company started to produce a product for distribution to retail stores in a certain area of the United States. In a relatively short time the product became national in scope. The secret of success was the product's consistently high quality. And how did the American housewife find out about this quality? Why, by tasting the product! She discovered that the ingredients listed on the package were actually apparent in the product, and the product tasted so good that discriminating customers were willing to pay a higher price for it.
The baking company had grasped the age-old truth that the quality of genuineness is appreciated right in the midst of substitutes and that integrity of process assures success.
It would appear, then, that if genuine success in any endeavor is to be maintained, the whole process and all ingredients must be good. The substitution of one imitation or shortcut would detract from the whole and would be noticed.
Mrs. Eddy proved that success in spiritual healing is still available in the present age, but that it takes genuine spirituality and integrity of practice. No substitute can be tolerated, or the healing work will be protracted or impossible.
Mrs. Eddy called her discovery Christian Science because it was, and is, the complete and scientific revelation of the truth of God and of man's relation to God. She proved that genuine understanding of Him as Spirit and as All, as the Scriptures testify, coupled with the integrity gained by complete surrender to the divine will, heals as readily today as of old.
Mrs. Eddy authored the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, which explains Christian Science healing, and the Manual of The Mother Church, which outlines the duties and responsibilities of the members of this Church, and protects them from false doctrine. The reader may ask why Christian Scientists are particular about the use of these books. It is because they maintain and guarantee the genuineness and the integrity of the teachings of Christian Science, the results of which are healing and regeneration.
The Science of healing by spiritual means was practiced not only by Christ Jesus and the prophets before him but by those apostles who remained after his ascension and those who followed them and maintained the early Christian Church. But the Science of salvation and healing was finally lost sight of through sloth.
Sometimes today, through sloth, the Science of healing is not seen or utilized. Now spiritual sloth has been called one of the seven deadly sins. This sloth is not just human laziness. It includes the sin of omission—of knowing what to do that is genuine or good and not doing it. It is telling oneself that the demands of goodness are too strict or too old-fashioned or that an extreme such as purity should be practiced by a specialized few.
Christian Scientists know that such a state of thought is not always readily detected because it sometimes parades as goodness. It says that a product will be more easily and widely accepted if made cheaper through substitutes, dressed in gaudy trappings and aggressively promoted. They know that such arguments can be as prevalent in religion as in a commercial product. And they know that sloth can be more than physical laziness: it can be effort without quality, ability without genuineness, efficiency without individual initiative.
In an era of concern over collective health and welfare, it is important for the Christian Scientist to remember where true health and welfare, genuine peace and supply, come from. Understanding that man is the completely good and spiritual idea of the one divine Mind, God, the Christian Scientist knows that he is always at the point of perfection. He knows that in his true selfhood he is completely spiritual, never material. He knows what is good and does it.
He takes seriously the words in Isaiah (61:1), "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound." And he accepts wholeheartedly Article XXX, Section 7, of the Manual, the first paragraph of which reads: "Healing the sick and the sinner with Truth demonstrates what we affirm of Christian Science, and nothing can substitute this demonstration. I recommend that each member of this Church shall strive to demonstrate by his or her practice, that Christian Science heals the sick quickly and wholly, thus proving this Science to be all that we claim for it."
To the materially-minded, Christian Scientists may appear to be extremists, but as our Leader says on page 167 of Science and Health: "It is not wise to take a halting and half-way position or to expect to work equally with Spirit and matter, Truth and error. There is but one way—namely, God and His idea—which leads to spiritual being. The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind. It is impossible to gain control over the body in any other way. On this fundamental point, timid conservatism is absolutely inadmissible. Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized."
Christian Scientists know that any position short of "radical reliance on Truth" is to be avoided. Popular programs of health and welfare, though appearing to be benevolent, have no basis in the one divine Mind, but are offered by mortal mind as solutions.
And how does one gain Truth? Through reason and revelation. And how does one know that what he is learning is the truth? By the genuineness of the impression and the integrity of the results.
The author was for some years an operating partner in an ice cream manufacturing business. Under the auspices of the Pure Food and Drug Administration, the health of both partners was under kindly surveillance. At one time during this period both partners came down with a skin disease which was baffling and alarming. The designated medical officer recommended several remedies, which were followed, but with no apparent improvement.
The author, a complaisant student of Christian Science, began to see the slothfulness of his own position. He knew the remedy, but was drifting along with the views on health and welfare accepted by the government specialist and his own partner. This awakened him sufficiently to enable him to begin denying the power of either disease or the material means of healing it and to know that only God governs and that His government is genuine and complete. His condition began to improve from that time on, while that of his partner remained much the same. The author's denials of error and affirmations of Truth became more meaningful and absolute. Within three weeks he was completely free of the condition.
How do Christian Scientists know which remedy is genuine in healing? Through the results it brings. Physical healing is the natural result of spiritual understanding. Through such healing, Scientists know they are on the right road. As thought becomes more spiritual, more harmonious, that which is mortal and discordant disappears from one's experience.
In the words of the Psalmist (Ps. 34: 8), "O taste and see that the Lord is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him."
