We often hear speakers at the Wednesday evening testimony meetings held in Christian Science churches say that they find mere words inadequate to express fully the gratitude they feel for the benefits received from the study and practice of Christian Science. It is also true that, even if language equal to the proper expression of gratitude could be found by every such speaker, so numerous and varied are the benefits and blessings Christian Science brings to all honest students, that the time at their disposal on these occasions would certainly be insufficient for this purpose.
The gratitude of the true Christian Scientist, though, possibly, primarily aroused by his own individual experiences, never finds its limits of causation in such particular incidents; for as he progresses he learns that each demonstration of the power of Truth, victorious over error,—no matter how insignificant that demonstration may appear,—lessens the sum total of mortal mind influence over the human race as a whole. Thus, there is so much the less of that influence to mesmerize or delude him, and, conversely, so much the more facility in the demonstration of divine Principle. He also learns that the sanest, cleanest, most beautiful and helpful things in human consciousness to-day are the lovely spiritual ideas which Christian Science reveals; and he finds by experience that as he practices these in his daily thinking, existence itself becomes for him saner, cleaner, and more beautiful, because it expresses itself in helpfulness and usefulness to others. He knows that this is the work which Christian Science is accomplishing in an ever increasing degree, over an ever enlarging sphere of influence throughout the world. He finds it in every testimony, whether uttered in the churches or recorded in the periodicals; he sees it in every Christian Science church or society that is organized; and he is more and more assured that the day is fast approaching which was foretold by the prophet in the words, "The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea."
In the light of that grand assurance he considers the enlightenment, the improvements, the discoveries, and the inventions with which the human race has been blessed and benefited during the last half century, perhaps the most wonderful half century in all human history. And instinctively, unerringly, he knows that it all results from the quickening of the human consciousness by the power of Truth as revealed in Christian Science. Then he remembers that over fifty years ago one woman stood alone against the whole world of mortal mind, endeavoring in spite of all persecution to bring to mankind this Science of Christianity, the true understanding of God and His man,— so that all might receive the untold blessings which she knew would accrue from its acceptance. He dimly recognizes what courage of conviction, what purity of consciousness, and what nobility of character were needed, and wonderfully provided, for that spiritual undertaking; and he appreciates how it was achieved by the voluntary self-abnegation of a mortal in order that the immortal purpose might again be made manifest and understood through the Christ-idea.
