When I first attended Wednesday evening meetings at a Christian Science church, it seemed to my impatient state of thought that every one who spoke began by saying, "For twenty years..." until I found myself looking forward with longing to the time when I had bridged the usual score. Soon, however, I was to find that a grain of truth indeed works wonders.
It was when I had been reading Christian Science literature regularly five months that I had my first pronounced proof of the ever availability of Principle. One of my friends and I had been to the theater, and I left her at her door to go several blocks farther to my own home. I had gone but a short distance when two men attacked me. Obviously, I was not thinking truth at the time, but it asserted itself immediately, and the thought came that God was there and I had nothing to fear—and I knew no fear. I offered them my purse, but they made no move to take it. Then other people appeared in the block and my assailants fled, having shown only confusion and helplessness in carrying out their plan. An experienced practitioner to whom I related the incident, inquired as to the time when I put on my armor; and then I realized that I should do my reading and mental work the first thing in the morning instead of the last thing at night, as I had been doing.
From the very first, Christian Science has been a great help to me in my work, and that it is practical in its application to the so-called physical realm I can also testify. Last year I taught in the South. The planters had difficulty in getting their cotton picked, and appealed to the students to assist them Saturdays. As the response was apathetic, one of the other teachers and I volunteered to go to the fields if twenty students would also go. The practitioner in whose home I was rooming called after me as I started out, "Remember, God's child knows nothing of sore muscles and bleeding fingers." All day long I picked as diligently as I could. The following morning I arose as usual and had been moving about probably an hour when a neighbor came to inquire how I felt. Then I realized and appreciated that my body was uttering no complaint. My experience was in striking contrast to the experiences of my companions, some of whom were too stiff to get up and others were unable to leave the house.
