In her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 Mrs. Eddy writes, "The energy that saves sinners and heals the sick is divine: and Love is the Principle thereof."'02., p. 8; Love that is Principle, or God, is the constant, changeless, animating force of man's life. Therefore man cannot be separated for a moment from its beneficent power. Love is the essence and substance of man's consciousness. It is all-inclusive and all-embracing. As one learns to identify himself with divine Principle and to live in accord with its perfect law, he feels the spiritual touch of Love's healing energy. He sees that man, fixed in Principle, can never fall from his inherent spiritual perfection and completeness.
All the complexities that seem to arise in human experience can be dispelled through the action of the divine Principle, Love. No belief of sickness or pain, no onslaught of fear or hate, can withstand its omnipotence. The material sense of self, believing that it can be separate from this Principle, casts one's thought adrift in troubled waters. Never certain, secure, or truly satisfied, this false sense is always drifting with changing human emotions. This restless sense with all its fear occasions illness and other inharmony. James declares: "He that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. ... A double minded man is unstable in all his ways."James 1:6, 8;
Personal sense, the sense of man as material person, mesmerizes one to believe that he can leave the path of righteous living, obey his own will, act dishonestly, think hatefully, and thus separate himself from Love's healing, energizing power. But Christian Science effectively challenges this false sense and proves its powerlessness to control, influence, or attract.
Mrs. Eddy says, "Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love, and illustrates the unlabored motion of the divine energy in healing the sick."Science and Health, p. 445; The divine energy, expressed in human affairs as Truth counteracting error and Love overcoming hate, is irresistible. To acknowledge its presence is to achieve the equanimity and poise that remain unmoved by clashing human wills and distressing mortal fears. "The unlabored motion of the divine energy" stills the tendency to be annoyed, irritated, critical, or resentful. This healing energy, or the action of Love in our own thought, regenerates, invigorates, and refreshes. Love's energy is constant. It admits no irregularity, overaction, or inaction. To feel the divine energy of Love is to feel the presence and the power of the healing Christ.
Love's energy is the activity of the Christ, Truth, that was exemplified in full measure in the healing works of Christ Jesus. The Master proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that the power of Love transcends all so-called material power. His natural expression of Love and his unswerving obedience to Principle made his healings easy. It constituted his sure defense against the supposititious attacks of evil. Jesus knew Love's allness and felt its comforting presence. He knew that selfishness, resentment, unjust criticism, and sinful living, which are harbingers of disease, are destroyed through the activity of the Christ. Jesus lived Love and taught his followers to do the same. And so in our healing work we can heed Paul's admonition, "Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus."Phil. 2:5;
Here is the sure basis of all true health. No matter how long error has seemed a part of us, no matter what medical laws have seemed to bind us and what beliefs of heredity, contagion, or incurability have challenged us, the spiritual fact is that health is intact, and the activity of the Christ reveals it.
Therefore, having the Mind "which was also in Christ Jesus" and realizing our oneness, or unity, with the irresistible energy of Love, can we be troubled by personal sense? Can we be tempted by sinful thinking or unprincipled living? Can we be swayed by human will? Can we for one moment doubt the constancy of Love's all-embracing tenderness? Mrs. Eddy writes, "Love never loses sight of loveliness."Science and Health, p. 248; Love is not here one moment and gone another. Its omnipresent and effortless self-expression forever constitutes man's eternal perfection. There is nothing to interfere with this absolute, changeless fact. All error will naturally and inevitably disappear as we understand and demonstrate Love.
A student of Christian Science proved the healing power of Love when she was severely injured in an automobile accident and taken to a hospital. After she regained consciousness, she requested a friend to telephone a Christian Science practitioner some distance away, who sent assurance that she was taking up work for her immediately. The student explained to the doctors that she was a Christian Scientist but that none of her family followed this religion. The picture looked serious. She was told that she would not be able to walk without crutches for three months. No sedatives, sleeping pills, or antitetanus shots were taken, although these had been very strongly advised by the doctors.
The first night in the hospital the student talked with the practitioner on the telephone and continued to do so daily. Their work together was based on the acknowledgment and acceptance of God as Love and of man's identity as the reflection of Love, therefore spiritual, whole, complete, and forever untouched by fear, poison, or accident.
Some tests were taken, and in two of them the physicians noticed some frightening symptoms. The practitioner was informed of the condition. Through Christian Science treatment alone these symptoms disappeared immediately, and the student received a clean bill of health on all the tests. She left the hospital in ten days, and about three weeks later she was able to walk without crutches or a cane in spite of the prediction of the hospital physicians.
She later wrote to the practitioner: "Through it all I had such a deeply pervading and ever-growing awareness of God as Love, a more vivid consciousness of the activity of the Christ, renewing, invigorating, uplifting, and revealing my very being. The transcendent all-power that is God, who is forever revealing His own perfection, became a tangible force to me."
This healing Science, so practical in the experiences of men, is with us today because of the devotion of one God-inspired woman, Mrs. Eddy. No one since the time of the Master has healed as easily and instantaneously as she did. Always inspired by her love for God and for all mankind, she reflected in great measure the Christ-power that penetrates the most aggressive forms of error. Love permeated her consciousness as she moved in her human surroundings, increasingly aware of God's allness and her indivisible unity with Him. She persisted in the fulfillment of her divine mission in revealing the Science of being.
In her book, Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph, Julia Michael Johnston writes: "This student of the infinite beheld the all-embracing aspect of divine Love. She felt its ever-presence. She saw man's inseparability from Love. She demonstrated Love's dominion through divine healing, so that men felt the tender, compassionate, controlling touch of the Principle of the universe."Mary Baker Eddy: Her Mission and Triumph, p. 180.
Great peace is ours as our thoughts yield to the transcendent power of Principle's touch. It is then that we can go forth with joy, feeling within us the resistless impulsion of Love's spiritual energy that always brings healing.
