perience has shown that this defrauds the scholar, though it heals the sick.
It is seldom that a student, if healed in a class, has left it understanding sufficiently the Science of healing to immediately enter upon its practice. Why? Because the glad surprise of suddenly regained health is a shock to the mind; and this holds and satisfies the thought with exuberant joy.
This renders the mind less inquisitive, plastic, and tractable; and deep systematic thinking is impracticable until this impulse subsides.
This was the principal reason for advising diseased people not to enter a class. Few were taken besides invalids for students, until there were enough practitioners to fill in the best possible manner the department of healing. Teaching and healing should have separate departments, and these should be fortified on all sides with suitable and thorough guardianship and grace.
Only a very limited number of students can advantageously enter a class, grapple with this subject, and well assimilate what has been taught them. It is impossible to teach thorough Christian Science to promiscuous and large assemblies, or to persons who cannot be addressed individually, so that the mind of the pupil may be dissected more critically than the body of a subject laid bare for anatomical examination. Public lectures cannot be such lessons in Christian Science as are required to empty and to fill anew the individual mind.
