Healing the Sick EZRA M. BUSWELL, CSD          There is one question the nations of the world will all agree on. We desire that our sick be healed. The next important question to consider is, How shall they be healed? The author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, our textbook, has given a simple solution of it. She shows how to take God's Word and apply it in overcoming sickness as well as sin. Having experienced the healing power of the one Mind, she has been enabled to explain to humanity what this great Love will do for them. In doing this, the inspiration of Truth as expressed in God's Word, has been her only guide.          Jesus was governed by this one Mind. So far as mortals are governed by this Mind they are enabled to express their true Being with the Father. The command "Heal the sick" was as imperative as "Preach the Gospel," for it is good tidings to all mankind. His followers nineteen hundred years ago, proved the Principle he taught to be practical. Should not those who profess to follow him now be able to give the same proof?          America is called a land of Bibles, and because of this, it should be known as a land of robust, healthy, happy people, for this Book is a sure guide to the destruction of every fear, every sorrow, every sickness, every sin. To be healed through the understanding of God's Word, or Christian Science, we must search the Scriptures for what we want.          Are you suffering with sickness? Search for what it says about health. Are you overcome with sorrow? Find its antidote in joy. Do you believe your strength is failing you? Read, "God is our refuge and strength." Do you seem to be overcome with fear, so that your physical body appears full of confusion and suffering? "Perfect love casteth out fear." Accept this Scriptural statement as made for you, and you will be enabled to drink at the life-giving fountain that heals the sick.          The practice of Christian Science enables us to overcome our belief in sickness, sin and all evil. We are practising Christian Science only as we are growing less envious, less greedy, less selfish in all of its expressions, by striving to love our neighbor as ourselves, and keeping God's commandments. Such an example will reflect God's ideas and heal the sick.          It has been asked, "What would you do in an extreme case?" We would employ the very best physician that can be found; and follow his instructions and take his medicine. Divine Love is the great Physician, and I would dare trust no other. Jesus, by his works has shown how this great remedy heals all manner of sickness and evil. If one half of the time and care had been spent in searching God's Word in the light of Christian Science that has been spent in the study of materia medica for the wisdom that will enable us to overcome the ills of the flesh, we would have little sin and suffering in our land today.          Jesus came to do the will of the Father and destroy the works of the devil. He destroyed fear, sorrow, suffering. Even death was met and overcome by him. He expressed God's will in healing the sick and reforming the sinner. He brought joy where sorrow seemed to reign, health where sickness appeared to have control; he cooled the fevered brow, calmed the troubled breast; he overcame every obstacle with the one Mind.          When you can go to the bedside of the sick, can realize the presence of Love that knows no fear and become conscious of the presence of our Father, so that those who believe that they suffer in the flesh, catch the tone of harmony that pervades immensity, and they also acknowledge His presence in the absence of discord, is it not a proof that you have applied the right remedy?          Ezekiel says (in speaking of the tree whose leaf shall not fade), "And the fruit thereof shall be for meat and the leaf thereof for medicine." You need have no fear of giving an overdose of this medicine. Is your physical body, trembling with fear, so that you say you are nervous? Take God's remedy and become more loving. Do you feel in bondage, so that you say you have congestion? Open the door to your consciousness, let the sunlight of Love shine in, until you can look away from self, loving your neighbor as yourself, and you will get relief. Is there found in your consciousness the poison of jealousy, or envy, so that your physical body seems bound with a load too great for you to bear? Remember, "God is Love and God is all," and no such expression can remain where this fact is realized.          The field must be cultivated if it yields a bountiful harvest. If we would demonstrate the Principle of Christian Science, we must partake of the leaves that are for the healing of the nations, by emptying out of our consciousness, the fruits of the flesh; such as envy, malice, prejudice, bigotry, disobedience, doubts of God's all-power, and selfishness in all its conditions. Then will there be room for the healing balm of divine Love. The inspiration of Truth is more invigorating than any material stimulant. Isaiah says, "The joy of the Lord is thy strength." Our great Teacher says, "He that will come after me, let him deny (contradict) himself, and take up his cross and follow me." Ah, this is the cross, — to deny one's self; to be counted as nothing that God may be understood as all. The healing power of Love cannot be expressed while the consciousness is filled with self and selfishness. As the purity of water cannot be discovered through a soiled glass, so we cannot reflect God's ideas while our thoughts are filled with that which is unlike Him.          If we would think Good, we would express Good. If we would think health, we would express health; if we would think Life, we would show by our daily walk the presence of Life. It is written: "I am the God that healeth thee. " Shall we attempt to pervert God's Word, by saying this means only the healing of the soul?          He who would work in Christian Science and keep God's commandments, must strive daily to overcome in himself and for others every thought that is unlike God. To practice the Christ teaching we must think and act Christlike. We cannot reflect Love with an angry consciousness; we cannot point the way to Life with our thoughts filled with fear and death. We cannot hold up before humanity, the true idea of health while insisting on the reality and ever presence of sickness. We cannot overcome sin in ourselves and for others, while we defend its arguments by declaring its right or claim to Truth. Believing in the reality of evil, we cannot know the allness of God; believing in the presence of sickness, we seem unconscious of the presence of health. We cannot know our Father, whom to know aright is the realization of harmony, peace and health, while we are believing the statements of evil to be true. The claims of sickness seemed very real to those who stood about Jesus on the Galilean shore; but he proved the mastery of Truth over error and healed their belief in sickness. To be his followers, we must do likewise. Is it a sin to declare the supremacy of harmony, when confusion is seen all about us? Paul says, "God is not the author of confusion, but of peace." Is it wrong to declare that God is in no way the cause of sickness, but that it is the effect of sin? Jesus said to the man who had the infirmity thirty and eight years, "Go and sin no more, lest a worse thing come upon thee." It may be asked where do we get our authority for denying the reality of that which is unlike God? The Bible is our highest authority. It teaches the omnipotence, the omniscience, the omnipresence of God on every page. We cannot declare His allness, and at the same time, admit the presence of another ruler and be consistent, even though the pangs of error seem real to the material senses. To correctly work out an example, we must begin at the first and only cause. God is the only true Cause. Any element or condition that is unlike Him, must be an error. An error in the example seems real until discovered. When found out, it vanishes like the mist before the sunlight.          While mortals are asleep in the belief that Life is resident in matter and is subject to it, the sense of fear and suffering will seem very real; but as we awake out of this false sense, we begin to recognize the presence of God and hear the voice that says, "It is I, be not afraid." Divine Love (our Father) is the Light that lighteth the universe. Can darkness be found in Light? Can fear dwell in Love? Can sickness be found in God's image and likeness? Do such statements contradict the evidence of the material senses? Paul says, "Let God be true, but every man a liar." There can be no truth in that which does not come from Truth. Jesus says, "I am the Way, the truth and the life."          Sickness and all its accompaniments are the effects of the god of this world. Shall we not antagonize such a ruler? We cannot serve two masters. We must declare for the one and against the other. Science and Health has shed a new light upon the Bible to this age, and reading this precious book in this light, we have been healed from what M. D.’s pronounce incurable diseases. We were healed through the study of the Bible and the aforesaid book. People of all ages and conditions have been healed physically, and made better morally in this way. It is asked, "Are there any failures in Christian Science?” There never has been and never will be one failure in Christian Science. God's Word never fails. If there seem to be failures, it is for the lack of Christian Science. If no one believed in sickness, there could be no sickness. Let us know the Truth that makes us free, even from this belief.   "Healing the Sick" by Ezra M. Buswell, CSD The Christian Science Journal, December, 1893

 

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