Healing with Truth

On page 92 of our Church Manual, under the caption “Healing Better than Teaching,” Mrs. Eddy tells us that “healing the sick and the sinner with Truth demonstrates what we affirm of Christian Science, and nothing can substitute this demonstration.” Then she goes on to 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.” Obedience to the requirements of this By-law will alone insure the continued success of the movement of Christian Science, since through healing alone can the world be convinced that Christian Science is the truth. As our Leader says, “Nothing can substitute this demonstration.”

Of course there is no Christian Scientist who does not agree with this. And yet, how many of us are satisfied with our present fulfillment of the demands this By-law makes upon us? We might easily multiply the reasons why we believe our demonstrations of healing are so meager; we could count by the dozen the limitations and delinquencies of which we appear to be quilty. Still there is the law for us—”Healing the sick and the sinner with Truth demonstrates what we affirm of Christian Science”!

But wait a moment! Has not Mrs. Eddy shown us right here the way out of our lacks, out of our inabilities, out of our failures? “Healing … with Truth”! The blessed truth of perfect God and His perfect man as revealed in Christian Science! Then why should we stand appalled at our own shortcomings and waste valuable time in moaning over the falsities of belief in a corporeal selfhood, which never has healed anything and never can? Isaiah commanded centuries ago, “Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” Over and over again does Christian Science iterate and reiterate that it is Truth which heals; that it is Truth we are to learn to know; that it is Truth to which we are to cling insistently; that it is Truth we are to prove is the only healing power.

Then we must learn to dwell perpetually with Truth if we are to demonstrate its healing. And how shall we dwell with Truth except by thinking only true thoughts? Surely nothing could be simpler than to think truly, to contemplate only the facts of being, to admit only the good and the real. It is only error, the supposititious arguments of that which Jesus called “a liar, and the father of it,” which would deceive us into believing that it is easier to think evil than good.

To be sure, it takes steadfast, consecrated effort always to know the truth which Jesus promised would free us from all lies. But the constant knowing of the truth is the demand made upon us by God, since only thus can we acknowledge Him in all our ways. We know, however, that God never made a demand which He did not at the same time give the wisdom and ability to fulfill. Then we can certainly cling to whatever of Truth we understand to-day, for thus we shall begin that obedience which must finally lead us into all truth.

To cling to the truth we know to-day necessarily implies the rejection of every claim to an opposite which this truth will inevitably uncover to us; for we need never fear that holding to Truth will blind us to error; on the contrary, it is the only way whereby we can come to recognize evil as evil, and thus discern its unreality. Who but the one who knows that five times five are twenty-five can ever unsee the suppositional lies which would present five times five as something more or less than the invariable truth, which always results from correct multiplication.

As we constantly dwell with Truth, we shall become acquainted with it; and as we become acquainted with it, we cannot fail to love and adore it, as well as trust in its perfect power, because we shall have come to know it as the alone desirable and real. Then it will be a simple matter to demonstrate its healing efficacy; indeed, it will then be impossible for us not to insist on its reality until it prevails over every supposititious lie. When we are thoroughly convinced that any truth is true, we never again can be turned aside from its realization or its inevitable proof.

There is therefore no question but that as our understanding of Truth is enlarged; as our faith in Truth increases; as we cease consequently to believe in any opposite, the healing of the sick and the sinner must become more and more spontaneous. Let us therefore, as Christian Scientists, consecrate ourselves anew to loyalty to Truth, that thereby our wonderful By-law may be obeyed to the speedy overcoming of both sickness and sin.