Each year the summer vacation season reminds me of some experiences of mine seven years ago. From years of shop life, an outing had come to mean the getting away as far as possible from everything that would suggest the routine of daily work, and being just as free from physical or mental exertion as inclination might prompt. In planning for the holiday of which I write, I remembered that this was to be my first since coming into Christian Science, a little over a year before, and I began to review mentally my work. The first part of the year had been spent in studying Science and Health and in trying to apply its teachings for myself, and toward the latter part I had been called upon to do some outside healing work, besides spending considerable time in telling interested people what Christian Science had done in our family, and what it would do for them. In addition to this I had attended the meetings regularly. As I thought it all over, it suddenly occurred to me that on this account I needed a mental rest more than ever before. Prior to this, I had not seen anything to indicate that Christian Science work was fatiguing, but in my inexperience I allowed the thought that I was tired by it ,to enter unchallenged, and from that moment I felt the need of a rest, not only from my manual work but from Christian Science work as well. More and more was this thought entertained, until I looked forward with almost feverish impatience to the time when, for two whole weeks, I could lay all work aside and sit down and rest.
With this end in view I accepted the invitation of a friend and his mother to visit them on their farm in New Hampshire. It seemed to me to be the very place for which I was looking, as the village was several miles from the steam cars, and, so far as I could learn, with not a Christian Scientist in it, consequently without meetings to attend, and with no interested persons to inquire about the work,— just nothing to do but enjoy absolute rest. On bidding my wife good-bye, I told her that she need not expect a letter from me, as two weeks was too short to spend any of it in writing letters. In all my plans for this vacation I had entirely overlooked the fact that new environments always bring new conditions to meet, and that the patient who has given me more hard work than all others, namely, myself, was to be my constant companion.
My friend met me, we drove out to the farm, and I had a keen appetite for supper, which was just ready. On sitting down to the table, however, there swept over me such an overwhelming sense of fear that my appetite was instantly gone. At home, because of years of ill health, we had become accustomed to having our food of the plainest kind and cooked in the most simple way. Through Christian Science we were enabled to eat heartily of such food without being distressed or half starved as we had been before, but so far I had not had to demonstrate over a regular diet, and on my friend's table that night there was not one thing which had not been expressly forbidden me by my former physician. The food looked rich, and as I tasted one thing after another I found it to be even richer than it looked. I did not dare to eat much of it, but simply nibbled a little here and there and soon after went to my room where, after blowing out the light, I sat down by an open window to think the situation over. The dismal picture outlined by the physician, as to what the consequences would be if I were obliged to eat such food for two weeks, was uppermost in my thought, and my fear was so great that for some time I could see nothing else. After awhile I began to notice how very still it was up there in the country, and it impressed me so much that for a few minutes I forgot all else; and then, in that stillness, there came softly into my consciousness, like strains of far-away music, the teaching of our text-book, that when we are distressed with the thought that food interferes with the harmony of either mind or body, then we must give up either the food or the thought. This came to me again and again, and with each repetition the question appealed to me with increasing force, Which will you give up? until I finally lighted the lamp and began to read the last paragraph on page 388 of Science and Health. As I read, my courage returned in a measure, and while self fairly writhed at the prospect of having to settle down to systematic work at the very outset of my vacation, there seemed to be no other way, for it was simply a case of either working against my fear or going without eating; and I will say right here that I did eat heartily of all that was set before me after that night, with not the slightest distress, but to do this I had to work as hard mentally before and after meals as I have ever worked. On the fifth day, however, I was delivered from all fear of food, as I shall relate in its order.
