"And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God."— Luke xiii. 29.
LO, I am with you always." When first I learned, in Christian Science, that Life, Love, and Truth are ever present, I felt like telling the good tidings to all I met. Looking back upon my own experience, I found that the impersonal Truth, unrecognized as such, had long been forcing itself upon me.
Brought up from childhood by devoted parents in the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, I had been taught to regard its teachings as infallible in matters of faith. Before I was considered old enough to take part in the practical duties of religious worship, a family servant brought me the Lives of the Saints. After reading such books, I used often to wish that I had lived in the days of the early Christians, when a severe, practical test of faith in God was required. I remembered especially the hardships that they so joyfully endured for the Truth, and thought what a glorious thing it would be to do likewise. The life of Saint Agnes, who, when quite a young girl, was a victim of one of the Roman persecutions, was deeply interesting. This faithfulness to an ideal that the world could not under-stand, was one of the far-reaching influences of my childhood. It was not the self-inflicted penances that attracted me to the lives of the saints, but the steady purpose with which, in all cases and under all circumstances, they followed their ideal. The lives of Saints Aloysius, Stanislaus, and Blessed Berchmans, were among those which gave me most food for thought. Cheerfulness, obedience, simplicity and purity, were their most marked characteristics. While reading the life of Blessed Berchmans I was studying a piece on the piano, and thenceforth knew it under his name, so vividly did it recall the same. These books were for a long period sources of delight, and I was often told that I had injured my eyes by reading them at twilight.
