Gratitude is the keynote of healing in Christian Science. It opens the door to the reception of Love's abundant outpouring of good to patient and practitioner alike. Gratitude and giving are correlated in Christian Science. In these times of rising costs of living, it is well to review the measure of our giving.
Our wise and loving Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, gives counsel and admonition to guide both practitioner and patient in the matter of proper remuneration for Christian Science treatment. Her article entitled "The Laborer and his Hire" on page 214 of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany deals helpfully with this subject; likewise, a question and answer beginning on page 13 of Rudimental Divine Science.
Under the caption, "Practitioners' Charges," Mrs. Eddy says (Miscellany, p. 237), "Christian Science practitioners should make their charges for treatment equal to those of reputable physicians in their respective localities."
From this statement we may deduce that Mrs. Eddy expected the charges of Christian Science practitioners to increase in like ratio as the charges of medical practitioners in the community. It is obvious that our Leader did not have in mind the charges of the present-day specialist but the well-balanced charges of a reputable physician. Furthermore, the practitioner should bear in mind that whereas in medical practice the patient usually sees the physician intermittently, in Christian Science practice the practitioner may be called upon for daily treatment until a problem is solved. Consequently, justice born of a quickened sense of divine Principle, Love, must characterize the entire proceeding between practitioner and patient.
The fee for Christian Science treatment should be guided by local conditions and be arrived at through demonstration. For example, in metropolitan areas where the practitioner has to maintain a downtown office at a high rental the fee is naturally higher than in rural communities. Generally speaking, the practitioner should decide upon an adequate fee and from that basis adjust his charges according to the length of treatment given and the ability of the patient to pay. Our Leader indicates this in the Manual of The Mother Church, Article VIII, Section 22, second paragraph. It may be well here to call attention to the great importance of this entire By-Law.
The patient, on the other hand, should realize the applicability of our Leader's statement in Rudimental Divine Science (p. 14), "The student who pays must of necessity do better than he who does not pay, and yet will expect and require others to pay him."
It must be remembered that the practitioner devotes his entire time to the practice and that Article XXV, Section 9, of the Manual forbids him to pursue any other profession or vocation so long as his card is listed in The Christian Science Journal. Christian Science practice is a ministry to be pursued most reverently. It requires the practitioner to pray without ceasing and demands of him a life of dedication. In Article VIII, Section 22, the qualities of humanity, benevolence, forgiveness, long suffering, and the overcoming of evil with good are enumerated as essential in the practice.
When practitioner and patient are motivated by divine Principle, no one is excluded from having Christian Science treatment because of seeming inability to pay for it. Rather, the treatment breaks the mesmerism of poverty. Gratitude on the part of the practitioner enables him to behold man in God's likeness, neither poor nor sick. Gratitude on the part of the patient makes him both eager and able to give proper compensation for the priceless benefits he receives.
Christ Jesus, our Way-shower, said (Luke 6:38): "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." And both the beloved Master and our revered Leader exemplified this giving.
