The beauty of the teachings of Christian Science lies in their practical usefulness. We have all our lives read the Bible, which is filled with protecting promises; yet they seldom appealed to us only as something that might have met the needs of humanity in ancient days.
An experience given in the Scriptures which particularly appeals to me, is the delivery of the three young men from the fiery furnace. Through our enlightened understanding of God which is brought out by the teachings of our Leader, we know why the flames had no power over them. I have had a clearer understanding of this Scripture since learning of Christian Science.
I was assisting my mother in moving a gasoline stove which had been lighted. We had often moved it without turning out the blaze, but on this occasion I had just filled the tank and it was too full. I took hold of the stove at the end where the tank was, and in lifting it the gasoline was spilled over on me, falling upon my chest and upper right arm, as well as upon the burning stove. In an instant my clothing was in a blaze. As I wore a cotton garment, the fire made rapid headway. Starting as it did on my chest, it will readily be seen that I soon began inhaling the flames, and my face was burned up to my eyes, my eyebrows were entirely burned off, and I lost a great deal of my hair. My ears were burned almost to a crisp, while, as I discovered later, my face, neck, and chest presented the appearance of a mass of partially cooked flesh,— the skin being entirely burned off. My arms and hands were also badly burned. My left wrist was burned so deep that the cords in it seemed to have been severed; at least my hand, which had been burned black, fell back upon my arm so that one could not get a finger between the knuckles of my hand and the back of my arm. My right hand was not so badly burned, but it, too, was drawn out of shape, so that I could not use it.
