Wherever there is a Church of Christ, Scientist, the visitor or inquirer may be sure of instruction at its regular services on any Sunday of the year by means of the Lesson-Sermon for that date. During every week of the year he will find its reading room available for quiet study of the Bible and Christian Science literature, including the works of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Fddy. This regular church work goes on under the inspiration and guidance of her teaching. We may read in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 155) an example of her teaching, as follows: "All power and happiness are spiritual, and proceed from goodness. Sacrifice self to bless one another, even as God has blessed you. Forget self in laboring for mankind; then will you woo the weary wanderer to your door, win the pilgrim and stranger to your church, and find access to the heart of humanity."
Kindness to the stranger is enjoined through the Old Testament. The children of Israel were bidden to remember their own time of sojourn in a strange land, and they were called upon to be considerate. These were the words of the law: "Also thou shalt not oppress a stranger: for ye know the heart of a stranger, seeing ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Memory should not be inactive as an aid to gratitude. Every one who is honest with himself can remember the times of his own need of kindness and recall his own valuing of the fellowship of others, so as to be able skillfully to observe the Golden Rule. If the heart be lifted up when success comes, and pride be allowed to harden it, the self-exalted man is sure to be indifferent to human needs, inconsiderate of human affection, and so be in danger of offending God's little ones. Humility will deliver every honest worker from the austerity of judging others, from frigid indifference, preoccupation and irresponsiveness, so that he shall be able ever to look kindly on the things of others. When what we might call the church in the wilderness was being formed, Moses made a summary of duty when he said: "And now, Israel, what doth the Lord thy God require of thee, but to fear the Lord thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?" Furthermore, concerning the Lord God he said, "He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt."
It is an immemorial custom of the East that a guest shall be a favored person. When he had partaken of a sheik's bread and salt the traveler was as safe in all his domains as if he had by participation in hospitality thereby become one in the patriarchal family. Violation of hospitality was looked upon with reprobation because it induced distrust of actual manhood itself. To rob or injure one under the rooftree seemed to be a peculiar diabolism. To poison a guest who trustfully was accepting food and drink was looked upon as the acme of cowardice and inhumanity. The very few exceptions to the general rules of hospitality caused by treachery affected men with such abhorrence that general support was given as if Inhumanity itself to the grace of hospitality and acknowledgment of the rights of the guest. One of the desirable characteristics of the bishop or presbyter was that he should be "given to hospitality.''
