True, faith is good, but faith and works are better.  Though we cannot heal and give life, we can in many ways assist the healer within.  We can teach and explain Nature’s Laws, we can remove obstructions and we can make the conditions within and around the patient more favorable for the action of Nature’s healing forces.

When the Great Master said:  “Go forth and sin no more, lest worse things than these befall you,” he acknowledged sin, or the transgression of natural laws, to be the primary cause of disease, and made health dependent upon compliance with the Law.  The necessity of complying with the Law, in all respects and on all the planes of being, is still more strongly emphasized in the following: 

“For whosoever shall keep the whole law and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.”

The skeptic and the superficial reader may reply:  “This saying is utterly unreasonable.  Stealing a penny is not committing a murder; overeating does not break the law of chastity; how, then, is it possible to break all laws by breaking any single one of them?” There is, however, a deeper meaning to this seeming paradox which makes it scientifically true.

Self-Control, the Whole Law

Obedience to all laws on all planes of being depends primarily on self-control.  Self-control is, therefore, in a sense, the whole law, for man cannot break any one law unless he breaks first this fundamental Law of all Laws.  This implies that the demoralizing effect of sinning or law-breaking, on any one of the planes of being, does not depend so much upon the enormity of the deed as upon the loss of self-control.  Continued weakening of self-control in trivial things may therefore, in the end, prove more destructive than a murder committed in the heat of passion.  If there is not self-control enough to resist a cup of coffee or a cigar, whence shall come the will-power to resist greater temptations?

Truly, lack of self-control in small things is the “dry rot” of the soul.  Is it not, then, somewhat unreasonable to expect God or Nature to strain and twist the immutable laws of Nature at the request of every healer in order to save us from the natural consequences of overeating, red meat eating, whisky drinking, smoking, tobacco chewing, drugging and a thousand and one other transgressions of natural laws?

In spite of the finest-spun metaphysical sophistries, we continue to burn our fingers in the fire until we know enough to leave it alone.  Herein lies the corrective purpose of that which we call evil—­suffering and disease.  The rational thing to do is not to deny the existence of Mother Nature’s punishing rod, but to escape her salubrious spankings by conforming to her Laws.

What about the “Cures”?

As in medicine, so also in metaphysical healing, men judge by superficial results, not by the real underlying causes.  The usual answer to any criticism of Christian Science or kindred methods of cure is:  “That may be all right; but see the results!  Nobody can deny their wonderful cures,” etc.