Healing Words

In the reign of King Hezekiah, when Sennacherib, king of Assyria, was planning an attack upon Jerusalem, Hezekiah assembled his people and discussed the situation with them, reminding them that spiritual power is always superior to a material claim of power. The effect of his speech is recorded thus: “And the people rested themselves upon the words of Hezekiah king of Judah.”

How, as Christian Scientists, we long to have our words such that our fellow-men may rest in them! As we learn to rest in divine Love more and more trustingly, the words which we speak become restful, happy, and loving. As we learn to depend entirely upon divine Mind, our words become spontaneous and wise. In the measure that our own thought is healed, our words carry healing to others.

Words need not be many. A human sense of eloquence and wisdom is not prerequisite to the utterance of words that are divinely healing. On the contrary, it has been a common experience of prophets that human eloquence and wisdom must be laid upon the altar of Spirit with a humble, “Nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt.” This is a part of becoming as a little child. When Moses was chosen of God to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, he protested that he was “slow of speech, and of a slow tongue.” Now in the book of Acts we read of Moses that before his exile in the land of Midian he was “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.” Apparently he had forgotten about this; for he insisted that he was not eloquent. God comforted him with the assurance, “I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say.” The true eloquence which Moses learned to reflect continues through the ages in its healing mission.

The experience of Mrs. Eddy in this regard was similar to that of Moses. In “Retrospection and Introspection” (p. 10) she tells us that after her discovery of Christian Science most of the knowledge she had gained from schoolbooks “vanished like a dream,” and that her consciousness was illumined with divine wisdom. The written style of Mrs. Eddy’s works on Christian Science is a forceful example of the potency of inspired words. Scholars who have advanced to a demonstrable understanding of Christian Science pronounce her style among the most beautiful, powerful, and remarkable the world has known. In its freshness, vigor, independence, spontaneity, sincerity, variety, simplicity, it furnishes a convincing patency of divine origination. Humbly and gratefully, students of Christian Science rest upon her inspired words, and are healed.

Jesus was a master of healing words. He reflected the loving wisdom which unerringly suits the word to the occasion and state of thought of the hearer. His rebukes to the Pharisees were rebukes to the Pharisaism of all times. He respected his own words as proceeding from God, saying of them, “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Again, he said, “Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.”

The language of Spirit is the silent language we use in prayer. As we learn to commune instantly and constantly with divine Love, these silent words of Spirit bless and heal humanity. The heart that needs healing will reach out by divine impulse to receive this message. Bird and flower and child heed and love this message of Spirit. On page 247 of “The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany” Mrs. Eddy has written, in a loving letter to a First Reader: “The little fishes in my fountain must have felt me when I stood silently beside it, for they came out in orderly line to the rim where I stood. Then I fed these sweet little thoughts that, not fearing me, sought their food of me. God has called you to be a fisher of men. It is not a stern but a loving look which brings forth mankind to receive your bestowal,—not so much eloquence as tender persuasion that takes away their fear, for it is Love alone that feeds them.”