Last summer during the very hot weather, while I was battling with error in my family, I had an experience which was very helpful. I had returned from a Sunday service which had been peaceful and uplifting. The subject: "God the Preserver of Man." together with the hymns sung during the meeting, had brought a great sense of love and peace to me.
I was changing my dress for a loose wrapper when a sharp pain stung me and I felt as if I had been struck a heavy blow on the head. I groped my way to my bed and fell rather than lay upon it. My groans brought my daughter to my side, and she told me afterwards that I was moaning: "Oh, my head, my head!" and that I was so black in the face that she could hardly recognize me. To myself I seemed to have two states of consciousness. One was that of a great weight on my head and an intensely bright light. Superior to all this, however, was the music of the choir as I had heard it in the morning, ringing clear and perfect: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Then whole paragraphs from the lesson would seem to be spoken again.
In a moment my daughter had run to a neighbor who is a Scientist, and she came and sat beside me with her book. She said nothing to me nor I to her, but I knew she was working for me. My next consciousness was that I had awakened from a nap and was told I had slept half an hour. I then told my neighbor I was suffering from heatprostration or sunstroke. We worked for another half hour, when I was able to rise, eat dinner, and go about as usual. Before another hour passed company arrived and remained the rest of the afternoon, and no one seemed to notice anything unusual.
The particular force of this demonstration was in showing me God's nearness. I came out of pain and weakness with such a sweet sense that God is Love. This brought to mind the promises: "I will be with him in trouble," "He shall call upon me and I will deliver him," "and show him my salvation."
With this proof of God's care a sense of discouragement left me, and I knew God was my preserver. I had seen His salvation and Christian Science was able to save to the uttermost. It was mine and I had a perfect right to expect all that it claims of good, not only sometimes but always.
Another thought, which came with this experience I think ought to be encouraging to all Scientists. It is that the Sunday lessons carefully prepared by the committee first, and later read in public, with all the added strength of unity of Science thought, all over the world, is doing a mighty work which every Christian Scientist is aiding. Every meeting is like bread cast upon the waters of mortal mind. After many days we learn that it has fed some hungry one, in the way of divine Love's appointing, and then returns to bless the giver.
Lund, Utah.
