The healings of Jesus have uplifted hope for over 2,000 years. But it wasn’t until Mary Baker Eddy discovered the basis on which Jesus healed as “… the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear …” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. xi) that these healings became relevant to human experience in this day and age. Likewise, the healings recorded in Fruitage—the closing chapter in that same book—give us hope and encouragement that we, too, can experience healing. The one message common to all the testimonies in the 100 pages of Fruitage is that every healing reported came from the individual’s reading of Science and Health.
This message in Fruitage comes from one of those healed by reading the book: “I read the book four times in succession, and every time I found more and more to aid in the understanding” (p. 687). What a powerful message to us today! Each time we read Science and Health, we read it from a higher standpoint, which illustrates Mrs. Eddy’s statement: “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis” (Science and Health, p. 258). The understanding of God is an infinite task, since God is an infinite subject—and we will always be increasing our spiritual understanding as each reading unfolds a new and higher viewpoint.
Up until a few years ago, I had read the book only twice from cover to cover. The first time was as a 12-year-old, reading to my mother—she was suffering from consumption and was healed. The second time was in preparation for taking Christian Science class instruction. When it was specifically pointed out to me that in it, Mary Baker Eddy says: “Read this book from beginning to end. Study it, ponder it” (Science and Health, p. 559), I began reading Science and Health again from the first sentence in the Preface to the last testimony in Fruitage, and I’ve been doing so regularly ever since.
