By the time this reaches you I expect to be in Iowa to deliver a couple or more lectures upon Christian Healing, and if favorable form a class to instruct.
I go there upon the invitation of a student of mine, that has done some very remarkable cures, one a case pronounced incurably blind; another a child of seven, unable to walk from birth.
We rejoice in this, because we are sure they were Spiritually healed; no "Mind-cure" or mesmeric theory entered into the work. I wish I could tell you more of this student, (Mrs O H Earll) the work of ScienceEditorial Note: Christian Science upon herself and family; it would rejoice your heart.
Doubtless you will have heard ere this, that Miss Libbie Beyer of OcontoEditorial Note: Oconto, Wisconsin passed away on Friday the 15th instantAs Written:inst. pronounced by the paper consumptionEditorial Note: tuberculosis. I find myself in a wilderness of conjecture, trying to explain to myself the why of this seeming defeat of scienceEditorial Note: Christian Science; also I dread the questions of our students.
I have heard some scientistsEditorial Note: Christian Scientists remark, when such an event occurs, "They died in the full faith of Christian Science; and it was probably their time to go."
Now I do not believe in such cant, or derive such instruction from ScienceEditorial Note: Christian Science. There is an explanationAs Written:explaination, but what?
You understood Miss. Beyer; hence are able to say whether she ever arrived at a sufficient understanding of spiritual things.
I explain to it myself in this way – Either she had not conquered the belief of an intelligent self, and the fear of death, or else she was surrounded by an atmosphere of (a state of mortal mind) ignorance through which it was an easy thing for malice or hate; (of Science) to reach her.
When I say "atmosphere of ignorance, do not think I use the phrase personally, or to cast reflections upon Mrs SargentEditorial Note: Laura E. Sargent or Victoria H. Sargent, McDonald and others of our friends who worked faithfully for Miss Beyer; but is it not a possibility for Christian Scientists, to be lulled into a state of mortal mind, and they all the time believe they are in ScienceEditorial Note: Christian Science? To instance my meaning, one of my students remarked to another, "that as long as our motive is right, is to do good, we are in scienceEditorial Note: Christian Science." I replied that good motives were so many cracks and crevices into their house through which an army of evils and errors could steal in and undo their work as fast, and faster than they could repair, or rebui ld.
I can assure you my teacher, that I can see more what I and others have not grasped of this ScienceEditorial Note: Christian Science, than I can of what I have grasped.
I can discern a great lack of spirituality among those we have taught, as the greatest hinderance in demonstrations. Their very questions; "how to treat?" betrays they lean too As Written: to much upon a material sense of Life.
However all these apparently As Written: apparantly unexplainable things do not discourage us; we are sure that Christian Science will rise triumphant over all obstacles.
The 11th or 12th I sent you an express money order $3.17Editorial Note: $3.17 in 1886 is the equivalent of $87.28 in 2020., requesting to send me a copy of the New revised edition "Science & Health; did you receive the letterEditorial Note: This letter is not extant.; I should [*]Gap: letter.Reason: page rip.ave received a reply by this date.