At one time I was in a part of the country where the land was fertile, but, owing to fires and drouth, there were no trees. My mother, being very much interested in the country, felt it to be her duty to prove that trees could be grown successfully there. She spent much time, labor, and money in proving it. One season she had a quantity of black walnuts to plant. The man she engaged to do the work, said to her one day, "Don't you think it very foolish and a waste of time for you to plant these walnuts? They are of very slow growth and you are not young; you will never live to see them trees." My mother answered him, saying, "Don't you think I shall do pretty well if I live to plant them? that is my work." That answer made a lasting impression upon me, and ever since then I have been interested in watching people plant seed, and especially the seed of Christian Science.
One day a few years ago a true, loyal, honest, earnest Christian Scientist, invited a friend who was soon going to stay a few months in a village in one of our froniter states, to spend the day with her. This friend had known a little of Christian Science, but was gradually losing all in terest in it. In the conversation the loyal one urged the friend to take her Science and Health with her, and asked her to promise to read in it every day. The friend, not wishing to give the promise, turned the subject of conversation time and again; but the Scientist persisted in planting that seed, and finally obtained the promise. After the friend was settled in this frontier village, she called on two ladies whom she had known years before, and found one of them in a darkened room on account of her eyes. They had troubled her for years, and each year they grew worse. She said she had been to Chicago several times to have her eyes treated, and expected to go again in about ten days for the same purpose, and to have a surgical operation performed, as her eyes were only one of many ailments she was suffering from. She had eaten only toast and cereal foods for months. After she had finished her sorrowful story this friend told them she had promised to read a book every day, called "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker G. Eddy, that many people had been healed by reading it, and if they were willing, she would gladly meet them every afternoon and read aloud. They assented, and the work began. When the ten days were up the lady said she was not goint to Chicago at present. The reading continued during the summer. One by one the ailments of the afficted one began to disappear; among them were dyspepsia, neuralgia, and nervousness, and her eyes improved. She did not go to Chicago, but continued to read Science and Health, and was finally healed.
Other people in the village became interested, and from one case of healing that came from the planting of that one seed, over two hundred people were led to investigate and accept Christian Science. And that was only one branch of the tree. It has spread in every direction and gone forth to different parts of the country bearing fruit. If there is one branch more than another that has given the friend who gave the promise and read the little book in that far away village that summer, cause for rejoicing and expressing gratitude and thankfulness to God and Mrs. Eddy, it is, that although the one who read, and the ladies who listened, long ago moved away from that frontier village, yet on the first Sabbath evening of the year 1900, they started a Christian Science service there, reading the lesson in the Quarterly and rejoicing that they had heard this great Truth.
