IN "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 232) Mrs. Eddy makes this impressive statement: "Metaphysical healing, or Christian Science, is a demand of the times. Every man and every woman would desire and demand it, if he and she knew its infinite value and firm basis." The developments of the years that have passed since Mrs. Eddy penned these words have proved the clarity and verity of her vision. Everywhere thinking men and women are rallying under the standard of Christian Science, and they are looking to those already within the fold to point them to the way of life, to the living bread that satisfieth the hungry heart.
In the smaller branch churches, however, it sometimes appears to the members that there is a dearth of suitable material from which to select the necessary officers and readers to carry on the services, or there is a feeling that a practitioner is needed who can be looked to as "the practitioner;" and in such cases, instead of setting diligently to work to develop and train the latent talent immediately available, the tendency is to take what seems to be the easiest way out of the difficulty, namely, to try to induce some one from another field to come in and supply the need. Almost invariably, however, when this course of procedure is resorted to, the difficulties attendant upon this supposedly easy solution of the problem prove to be many and serious. Jesus called his disciples from the fishing fleet and the tax-gatherer's bench, but it was to make them "fishers of men," laborers among their own people of the house of Israel.
In the first place, Christian Science practise is like no other call to the service of humanity on the face of the earth, and practitioners who are sufficiently experienced and efficient to attract attention, are not only satisfied to stay where they are, but also their work and environment are such as to make it impossible or inadvisable for them to remove to another place. To try to induce such a practitioner to locate elsewhere is unjust both to the practitioner and to the community. Unforeseen circumstances may bring about a change of environment, but the allurements of a new field are not to be so classed. On the other hand, to bring into a partially developed field an inexperienced person, would not in the least change the situation, unless to complicate it by seeming to establish the newcomer in a position of quasi-leadership, a course which could but be detrimental to the work and to the interest of every one concerned.
