Experience has taught me that the rules of Christian Science can be far more thoroughly and readily acquired by regularly settled and systematic workers, than by unsettled and spasmodic efforts.  Genuine Christian Scientists are, or should be, the most systematic and law-abiding people on earth, because their religion demands implicit adherence to fixed rules, in the orderly demonstration thereof.  Let some of these rules be here stated.

First:  Christian Scientists are to “heal the sick” as the Master commanded.

In so doing they must follow the divine order as prescribed by Jesus,—­never, in any way, to trespass upon the rights of their neighbors, but to obey the celestial injunction, “Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.”

In this orderly, scientific dispensation healers become a law unto themselves.  They feel their own burdens less, and can therefore bear the weight of others’ burdens, since it is only through the lens of their unselfishness that the sunshine of Truth beams with such efficacy as to dissolve error.

It is already understood that Christian Scientists will not receive a patient who is under the care of a regular physician, until he has done with the case and different aid is sought.  The same courtesy should be observed in the professional intercourse of Christian Science healers with one another.

Second:  Another command of the Christ, his prime command, was that his followers should “raise the dead.”  He lifted his own body from the sepulchre.  In him, Truth called the physical man from the tomb to health, and the so-called dead forthwith emerged into a higher manifestation of Life.

The spiritual significance of this command, “Raise the dead,” most concerns mankind.  It implies such an elevation of the understanding as will enable thought to apprehend the living beauty of Love, its practicality, its divine energies, its health-giving and life-bestowing qualities,—­yea, its power to demonstrate immortality.  This end Jesus achieved, both by example and precept.

Third:  This leads inevitably to a consideration of another part of Christian Science work,—­a part which concerns us intimately,—­preaching the gospel.

This evangelistic duty should not be so warped as to signify that we must or may go, uninvited, to work in other vineyards than our own.  One would, or should, blush to enter unasked another’s pulpit, and preach without the consent of the stated occupant of that pulpit.  The Lord’s command means this, that we should adopt the spirit of the Saviour’s ministry, and abide in such a spiritual attitude as will draw men unto us.  Itinerancy should not be allowed to clip the wings of divine Science.  Mind demonstrates omnipresence and omnipotence, but Mind revolves on a spiritual axis, and its power is displayed and its presence felt in eternal stillness and immovable Love.  The divine potency of this spiritual mode of Mind, and the hindrance opposed to it by material motion, is proven beyond a doubt in the practice of Mind-healing.