Two letters arrived to-day in the same mail.
The first, from an earnest student of Christian Science who reads the true literature, and tries intellectually to comprehend what she reads. She writes: '"The Way,' by Mrs. Eddy, deserves careful study, but what is humility in the Spiritual sense of the word?"
The second is from a Christian Scientist, past sixty years of age, who is landlady of a busy hotel in a pleasant Western village and railway junction. Scarcity of "help" in that section keeps her with many cares and activities; yet she always finds time to be "about her Father's business," and never turns away one "hungering for bread," either material or Spiritual.
Hearing that a lecture upon Christian Science, near her, had caused great "stirring up of the people," I had asked if the malice had touched her. Her reply is a practical answer to the inquiry of the first-named correspondent. It is as follows: "No, I have no fears. I know no mortal mind can come between me and God; and that Truth is the Light that guides me into all understanding. I feel that the Lamp (Christian Science) that will guide me through all darkness, is in my hand. I feel that no mortal harm can come to me any more. I have found the Light, the Way; and all darkness moves out before it. In God I live, in God I trust, all doubts dispelled. In God I dwell, knowing all will be well. I have found The Way through Christ Jesus. The light is before me, and guides me always in all places. Don't think that I will ever lose my way again.
" The adopted daughter of a lady resident in a neighboring town was here to-day. She is studying the Science, and said to me: 'I hear so much of your good works through the travelling men! They say if they are feeling ill, when they come here it all passes away.' One man told her that when he was sick he found an opportunity to talk with me a few minutes and went away well but I do not remember it.
"I have had to wash for me, this winter, a poor Bamish woman who has five children under nine years of age, besides two older boys. Her husband is a tailor by trade, and a good one, but he fell and broke his wrist nine weeks ago; and there has been no one to fill all those little mouths with food but "grandma" as they call me. So I have sent them food every day, and what I pay the mother buys light, wood, and pays rent.
"When everybody was coming down with la grippe, "grandma" took care of them, and just as fast as each began being sick put it away: so not one of them was sick more than one night.
"Then the doctor could not cure the broken wrist; it continued very bad for seven long weeks. Finally the doctor had to go away; then I went to see the patient every evening for a week, and his wrist was cured. Now he is at work again, and can take care of all those bright little children. They all do love "grandma" so, now; and "grandma" loves to think she could do so much for them."
This "grandma" has most vivid realization of Truth. When I visited her nine months ago, one of the servants, who scalded her hand and arm with steam badly, told me that the pain was frightful until "grandma" could be summoned; and that in three minutes after treatment began, all pain vanished, and she went about her work as usual,—never after suffering any inconvenience.
The personal welfare of every servant in the house is looked after by "grandma" as if it were her own interest. None leave there without a quickening of aspirations for Good.
"How do you, with so many cares, find time to treat your patients?" I asked. "Oh, there are little quiet times—often while rolling my pie crust," she said, "and nights I always read a little in Science and Health before I sleep."
A lady pronounced in the "last stages of consumption," came there from a neighboring State last spring. An attendant came and remained with her, until she was able to be left alone. In less than three months she returned home completely cured; and remains so to this date.
"Grandma" never advertises, never seeks a patient; never shirks one least, common duty. She seems to discharge all material obligations with the mechanical ease with which a wheel revolves upon its axis; yet so bright are her "intuitions," that the consumptive said to me: "I never am puzzled over anything in regard to the Science, but the next time she comes in, she begins to talk upon that very subject, and gives me just the explanation I need. I am sure she is perfectly unconscious that she does this."
Was it not in regard to humility (humble service) like this that the Master said, "Be ye faithful over a few things and I will make you masters over many"? In Science and Health we read "mortals must grow into Immortals, as babes grow to adults." The apostle, thinking in the same line, wrote: "Faith without works is dead."
No mere intellectual study of Christian Science can possibly make one a Christian Scientist. To conceive such high Spiritual ideals, or theories, of what may be in a pure, Spiritual existence, as to render our daily tasks and obligations distasteful and irksome, is not to advance Spiritually. One cannot climb a mountain by wishing herself at the top; nor by waiting for someone to pull her up; neither can she clear the distance at a bound. She must climb, step by step; and as she climbs, she will learn to cast aside all superfluous luggage.
We are in a world of uses, no matter how counterfeit; and we can only aid in establishing "God's kingdom on earth" by correcting those uses one by one; by resolving them into higher and better conditions through which the "false sense" may be more clearly detected. As the true Ideal appears, and error is uncovered as error, that understanding destroys both it and its so-called temptations.
Is there no useful lesson for us in the fact that Jesus toiled at the carpenters' bench till the last three years of his ministry? He said: "I came not to destroy, but to build up." This we ascribe to the line of successive Revelation from Abraham to Jesus; but is it not equally true in each individual experience; from the "old man" to the "new"? He who had absolute control of the elements, could have no use for houses or carpenters' tools; yet was Jesus led to walk the way, which is the Truth-way for all to walk, out of material sense into Spiritual Supremacy!
" To so divest beliefs of their false trusts and material evidence, that the spiritual facts of Being may appear—that is the grand work whereby to sweep away the false, and give place to the true. Thus, we may establish in Truth the temple or body, "whose builder and maker is God." (Science and Health, page 360, 40th Ed.) So, also (page 349): "To attend properly the birth of the new child or the divine idea, you should so detach mortal thought from its material conceptions, that the birth will be safe and natural. Through gathering new energies, an idea should injure none of its useful surroundings in the travail of Spiritual birth. It should not have within it a single element of error, and should remove properly whatever is offensive. Then would the new idea, conceived and born of Truth and Love be clad in white garments. Its beginning will be meek, its growth sturdy, and its maturity undecaying."
What is the "new idea" but the new understanding and perception which is born in us through the study of Divine Science? The first gleam of real understanding brings humility, as the hand-maiden of that "love which casteth out fear." As we with understanding look backward over our mortal journey, we will be able to rejoice in its discipline more than in its pleasures; and to recognize Good as All-in-all.
"Now this self-same God is our Helper. He pities us. He has mercy upon us, and guides every event in our careers." (Unity of Good, page 4.)
As we grow willing to be guided, and to serve, we are no longer "beaten with many stripes;" and we find our service, after all, is not to man, but to Him, who saith: "I will have mercy and not sacrifice."
