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The Bible teaches healing as coming to us through the atoning
work of Christ on Calvary, with which Christian Science does away
altogether; for according to Mrs. Eddy s teaching, since there is no
sin, there can be no redemption.
 But do they not have healings? I believe, from the Bible, that
they do; for we are taught to expect to see miracles wrought by
satanic power, especially toward the end of the age. But the infidelity
with which they teach is so fatal that I feel about their healings like
a woman who sent a request for prayer for her son to a meeting I
was holding in a Methodist church in Oakland.  My son is terribly
sick, she wrote.  There is no human hope, but I ask you to pray
for his healing to the God with whom all things are possible. But let
none but those who believe in the precious blood of the Lamb as our
only approach to God pray for my boy. Let no one who does not
honor the blood touch my suffering boy by so much as a thought.
Dr. A. B. Simpson was one of the most well-balanced men spir-
itually I have ever met; and he says of Christian Science,  I would
rather be sick all my life with every form of physical torment, than
be healed by such a lie.
 Open confession is good for the soul, and I feel impelled to
relate just here a bit of my personal experience (which I much prefer
to keep to myself) and to say that if anyone ever tried to believe
Christian Science, I was that person.
As I have already told you in an earlier chapter, I wakened one
morning to the realization that I was in a hopeless quagmire of drug
addiction, from which nothing human could extricate me.
I had tried everything that medical science could suggest, had
been discharged from the hospital as a patient they could not help
and had taken the Gold Cure. After spending practically all I had,
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The Bible or Christian Science
impoverishing my poor mother and other relatives as well by my
ceaseless efforts to find relief from some source, I turned to my
neglected Bible and my interrupted prayer life. And very soon the
light on healing began to dawn upon me from the cross of Calvary.
As I felt a faint flutter of hope in my breast where all had been
for so long the stillness of despair I turned to older Christians for
encouragement and not one crumb of comfort did they give me.
Remember this was over twenty-six years ago. As I read and re-read
the Bible, I saw more and more clearly that not only was provision
made for our healing but that we were ourselves commanded to go
forth and in the name of Jesus lay hands on the sick and heal them.
I said,  I will go to some of the believers I know and point these
verses out to them, and ask them to pray with me that I may be
healed. And I started on my weary rounds.
I was so desperate that I knew no shame in presenting my peti-
tion. No rebuff was stinging enough to make me desist. Some
said, because they were ashamed to confess that they did not
believe the Word of God:  We are too busy to deal with your case
today. Some other time, at the prayer meeting perhaps, you might
ask for prayer.
And I would reply,  Nothing you can possibly be doing is as
important as complying with Jesus last command to you to lay
hands on the sick that they may recover. Pray with me right here and
now, and I believe God will heal me.
But they would not, and at last I said,  The Bible says,  These
signs shall follow them that believe (Mark 16:17); and as they don t
follow these professed Christians, evidently they are not believers. It
is said that they follow Christian Scientists, that they heal the sick;
so they must be believers, and I will appeal to them. I went to New
York City and got in touch with the leaders of the work there.
Through the influence of a friend who stood very high in Christian
Science circles (she was afterwards a prominent practitioner in Berlin),
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His Healing Power
I secured treatments from a most eminent scientist, then practicing
in New York. Of course, I paid a goodly sum for them; but it was
a great favor to get them at any price, and I was made to feel that
I was under the greatest obligations to all who had assisted me to
do so.
Of course, I purchased all their literature; and at the command
of my practitioner plunged up to the neck in Science and Health,
reading it every waking moment, or nearly so, very rarely allowing
myself a dip into Mrs. Eddy s Miscellaneous Writings. I was told
that there was absolutely no trouble about my morphine addiction
and the awful physical conditions which had resulted therefrom;
that it did not really exist and would vanish like snow wreaths
before the sun as soon as I freed my thoughts from its  self-
imposed materiality and bondage by absorbing enough of Science
and Health.
I had a fall, I broke my arm, wherever should I go?
A Christian Science doctor shall dissipate my woe.
I found the lady calm and sweet, for it was office hours,
And she on absent treatments must concentrate her powers;
You think she felt the broken bone? No, nothing half so tame,
She looked into the distance and just denied the claim;
 In mortal error you are swamped but truth you now shall see,
For as you have no arm to break, no arm can broken be.
Since all is good, and good is all, just voice the truth and say,
 My arm is strong, and sound, and whole. Ten dollars,
please. Good-day!
I said,  Because in light and truth you re plunged up to the neck,
Just say,  I have ten dollars now, and thank you for
your check. 
That sounded good to me, you may believe, and I simply
devoured Mrs. Eddy s book. Although I did not know the Bible then
as I do now, I felt something like the man whose experience I read
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The Bible or Christian Science
some time ago. He was told by a woman friend that what he needed
was to study Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mrs.
Mary Baker Eddy.
 Why, I didn t know the Scriptures were locked; but if they are,
it is a mighty lucky thing the lady found the key, he replied.
 Yes, it is the greatest blessing that has ever befallen humanity,
said his friend.
And she was so enthusiastic that he finally consented to read the
Bible with her. She obligingly opened it with the wonderful  key.
 Mother used to teach me the Bible, he said,  and it seems as
if I would enjoy visiting some of the old rooms in it. Take me to the
one where we learn about how God created man and man disobeyed
God and fell.
 Oh, this is a very wonderful book. And you must be prepared
for some surprises, delightful ones all of them. That room you speak
of is closed, for Mrs. Eddy has discovered that God did not create
man, for  God and man co-exist and are eternal (page 336, line 30,
Science and Health), and also that  Whatever indicates the fall of
man& is the Adam-dream& it is not begotten of the Father  (page
282, lines 28-31).
 Lead me to the incarnation room where we are brought face-
to-face with the ineffable mystery of the Word made flesh, the Holy
Spirit coming upon the virgin, the power of the highest overshad-
owing her, so that the holy thing that was born of her, Christ Jesus,
was true God and true man.
 Well, I must prepare you for changes there, for  Those
instructed in Christian Science have reached the glorious perception
that& the virgin-mother conceived this idea of God and gave to her [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]