erely
seeks to re-establish the faith of the sufferer, and to convince him of
the non-reality of his illness. No medicine is given, the treatment
consisting of thoughts and suggestions from _Science and Health_.
Christian Science healers need to have a robust and unshakable faith,
for if they do not succeed in their task it is because their own spirit
has been infected by doubt.

Mrs. Eddy declared that our concrete and practical age required, above
all, a religion of reality; that men could no longer be content with
vague promises of future bliss. What they needed was a religion of the
present that would end their sufferings and procure for them serenity
and happiness on earth. The title of "applied Christianity" has been
adopted by Christian Science, which advises us to make use of the
teachings of Jesus in our daily life, and to reap all the advantages of
such a practice. We have need of truth "applied" to life just as we
have need of telegraphs, telephones and electric apparatus, and
now--say the Scientists--for the first time in man's existence he is
offered a really practical religious machinery, which enables him to
overcome misfortune and to establish his happiness, his health, and his
salvation on a solid basis.

The Scientists claim to have recourse to the same spiritual law by
means of which Jesus effected His cures, and they declare that its
efficacy is undeniable, since all Mrs. Eddy's pupils who use it are
able to heal the sick. One may suggest that Jesus performed miracles
because He was the Saviour of the world. Mrs. Eddy replies that
statements are attributed to Him which never issued from His lips; that
He said (in the Gospel according to St. John) that it was not He who
spoke or acted, but His Father; and stated elsewhere, that the Son
could do nothing of Himself. Also that Jesus never sent His disciples
forth to preach without adding that they should also heal. "Heal the
sick," was His supreme command. And that He never counselled the use
of drugs or medicines.

The healing of the sick, according to Mrs. Eddy, was one of the chief
functions of the representatives of the Church during the first three
centuries of Christianity, her subsequent loss of importance and power
being largely due to the renunciation of this essential principle.

Healing is not miraculous, but merely the result of a normal spiritual
law acting in conformity with the Divine Will. The leader of the new
"Scientist