It was my good fortune in wedlock to find an elevating and rarely harmonious companionship of forty-four years' duration. A large family came to us, and there were experiences of loss and grief, but seven children were reared under the most favorable conditions and well-equipped for useful citizenship. The zenith of my ambition being thus attained, the retrogression incident to all materiality began, and within another decade, when all the children were married, the strongest human support was suddenly removed. My husband passed on in sleep, and instead of a family of nine, all had left the home but one—myself. My cup having been so richly filled with human companionship and affection, the loss of them seemed all the greater, and I should have been the most miserable of women but for my knowledge of Christian Science. Mortal thought had been sufficiently corrected to enable me in the first moment of bereavement to see the unreality of it, but to maintain that high position unswervingly during the months following, entailed ceaseless watchfulness and effort. I had to do battle with a thousand antagonistic thoughts, singly, but they were vanquished one by one. However, my previous knowledge saved me from that torturing hunger of the eyes and other subtleties by which error usually attacks us in similar cases, and having passed through bereavement in the old thought, I was made aware of the absence of many of its torments by reason of the fact that I had learned to cognize man as God's image, and had especially guarded my thought concerning the personality of my family.
This explained verse 7 of Psalm 91, referring to closed avenues of error, but the "ten thousand" foes on the "right hand" were all vanquished singly by the word of Truth. I never had more than "a breathing moment" between, and there was no alternative but to fight mentally for a clear sense of Truth. One of my worst foes was human sympathy, which seemed like a great tide that would engulf me; but this, too, was overcome by refusing to admit that there was any need for sympathy or any reality in it. Error would have had itself indulged by dwelling on memories of the happy past, human longings would have set up an idol which shut out all else, obliterating the consciousness of God by the seeming bigness of something which claimed to be ever present and omnipotent, called grief.
The last argument of evil was that I had nearly attained the Scriptural limit of years assigned to man, that my family experience and duty being finished, there was nothing more for me on this plane and I must go on to another. Accompanying this thought were poignant physical conditions to back it, but all were destroyed through obedience to the Principle and rule of Christian Science. The result came in healing and peace, and augmented gratitude for the patient, tireless labors of our beloved Leader, in teaching Christian Science to the world. Having thus proven Truth for myself, I am enabled to continue in the field as a Christian Science worker, reinvigorated and daily humbly receiving and giving.— Evanston, III.
