"I don't understand just what you mean," said Phillida.
"You see," said Miss Bowyer, "faith-healing is a primitive and apostolic mode of healing the sick."
Miss Bowyer paused, and Phillida said, "Yes," in a hesitant way; for even the things she believed seemed false when uttered by Eleanor Bowyer.
"Well, ours is a scientific age. Now we practise—we revive this mode of healing, but in a scientific spirit, in the spirit of our age, and with a great deal more of knowledge than people had in ancient times. We reject the belief in evil; we call it unreal. Disease is a mistake. We teach faith in the unity of God the All-good."
Miss Bowyer evidently expected Phillida to say something at this point, but as she did not, Miss Bowyer was forced to proceed without encouragement.
"When I found that there was a great deal in it, I took the subject up and studied it. I studied mind-cure, or metaphysical healing, which strikes at the root of disease; I went into hypnotism, mesmerism, and phreno-magnetism, and the od force—I don't suppose you know about the od which Reichenbach discovered."
"No."
"Well, it's wonderful, but mysterious. Blue blazes seen by the sensitive, and all that. I studied that, and theosophy a little too, and I took up Swedenborg; but he was rather too much for me. You can't quite understand him, and then life is too short to ever get through him. So I only read what somebody else had printed about Swedenborgianism, and I understand him a good deal better that way. That's the best way to tackle him, you know. Well, now, all of these go to explain the unity of truth, and how the miracles of the Bible were worked."
Phillida said nothing, though her interlocutor gave her an opportunity.
"Well," proceeded Miss Bowyer, "this is what we call Christian Science. It's the science of sciences. It's as much above the rude method of primitive faith-cure practised by the apostles as the heavens are above the earth. We understand from knowing the philosophy of miracles the reason why we do not always succeed. We can not always secure the impressible condition by producing the quiescence of the large brain. But if we understand the theory of hypnotism we shall be able to put the cerebrum at rest and secure the passive impressible state of the cerebellum; that is, an introverted condition of the mind. This securing of interior perception is the basis of all success."