A Remarkable Incident (Part II)

Anyone who has not already visited the second entry prior to this one is advised to read it first.


The primary reason the event quoted in "Part I" is so compelling is that the writer was Adolf Hitler. The quotation is taken from Charles Bracelen Flood's Hitler: The Path to Power (p. 25). At that time Hitler was in his twenties and by many accounts a commendable and courageous soldier. It is somewhat outside the thrust of this entry, but Hitler later escaped numerous assassination attempts. It is an agonizing mystery why this monster was seemingly protected as if by some miraculous, invisible hand: impelled to leave early the scene of a speech where a bomb with a timer had been set; a bomb courageously placed on Hitler's plane failed to detonate because of a defective fuse; an errant foot unknowingly moved a briefcase containing a bomb behind the heavy wooden leg of a large table, deflecting the blast, which only slightly injured Hitler.


It is a well-worn, but true, adage that all which glitters is not gold. How easy it is to utter truthful words and lard the treatment of others or ourselves with sagacious quotes from Mrs. Eddy's writings, but without purity of thought and a clear spiritual sense of the words we think and speak, we probably aren't achieving a Christianly scientific healing, no matter what the outcome may seem to be. Hitler could have, and probably did, claim his deliverances from assassination attempts were proof of some divine intervention.


Just because nothing particularly bad happens to us, is this proof our protective work is effective? Athiests, non-Scientists, and non-Christians may also be free from accidents. We need to be free from the belief in accidents, sickness, disease, sin, and death because God dwells indisputably, palpably, consciously within us.


None of this is to question anyone's certainty or assertion that he has been protected, helped, or healed through Christian Science. But one suspects that if all the healings and demonstrations attributed to Christian Science were genuine and convincing, branch churches would be showing far more vitality than at present.

The willingness of some so-called practitioners to treat someone under the care of a doctor and/or who is taking drugs/medicine could not possibly result in a Christianly scientific healing, as Mrs. Eddy clearly explains on page 167 of S&H and numerous places elsewhere. That in such a situation something "good", a "healing", could happen is not being denied, but it won't be Truth demonstrated. It may be a faith healing, mesmerism, or simply mind over matter, but it can't be Christian Science. If mortal mind, matter, material body, fear, or personal sense remains a belief which distracts thought, then Christ, Truth, is not alone in our thinking and we will indeed hold to the one and despise the other.

It is the conclusion of one Christian Scientist that we must get it right, exactly as Mrs. Eddy has revealed it to us. Too much glitter has been accepted as Christian Science and not enough of the gold of Christ's precious works and words and Mary Baker Eddy's Discovery.

If all this is poorly articulated, and it very well may be, then simply view this lucubration as a sincere call for more instantaneous, indisputable Christian Science healing. When this is accomplished honest seekers will be drawn to our churches and the Christian Science movement will be revitalized.