Page:Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (1898).djvu/337

Rh bestows no pardon upon error, but wipes it out in the most effectual manner. Jesus suffered for our sins, not to annul the divine sentence against wrong, but to check the sin, and show that it must bring inevitable suffering.

Petitions only bring mortals the results of their own faith. We know that a desire for holiness is requisite

in order to gain it; but if we desire holiness above all else, we shall sacrifice everything for it. We must be willing to do this, that we may walk securely in the only practical road to holiness. Audible prayer cannot change the unalterable Truth, or give us an understanding of it; but a fervent habitual desire to know and do the will of God will bring us into all Truth. Such a desire has little need of any expression from the lips. Its very best expression is in thought and life.

“The prayer of faith shall save the sick,” says the Scripture. What is this healing prayer? A mere

request that God will heal the sick has no power to gain more of the divine presence than is always at hand. The only beneficial effect of such prayer for the sick is on the human mind, making it act more powerfully on the body, through a blind faith in God. This, however, is one belief casting out another, — a belief in the unknown, casting out a belief in sickness. It is not Truth itself which does this; nor is it the human understanding of the divine healing Principle, as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of man's unity with Truth and Love.

Prayer to a corporeal God affects the sick like a drug, having no efficacy of its own, but borrowing its power