In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," written by our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, we find on page 141 a most wonderful explanation of the stumbling stone which prevents, to a great extent, our spiritual development. She says: "Few understand or adhere to Jesus' divine precepts for living and healing. Why? Because his precepts require the disciple to cut off the right hand and pluck out the right eye,—that is, to set aside even the most cherished beliefs and practices, to leave all for Christ." It was the cherished belief in the joy and pleasure of smoking that held me in its bondage for over twenty years, and I know prevented many demonstrations of God's allness and goodness to me. I doubt if any one could imagine he received more pleasure from smoking than I thought I did. I smoked from eight to twelve cigars each day, requiring the blackest and strongest I could buy. I did not like even the odor of a mild cigar. On a number of occasions I tried to quit smoking, using will-power as a curative agent; but I could never overcome the thought that my human system was saturated with nicotine and that I must smoke as an added stimulant, and, at the same time, to satisfy a set habit of thought.
After becoming interested in Christian Science, I continued to smoke, and at times asked for help from practitioners; but I always asked for help with the fear that my cherished pleasure would be destroyed, and of course never received the help I did not really want. Finally, I was privileged to take class instruction in Christian Science; but even the wonderful spiritual understanding one receives in class did not seem to break the desire to smoke. About a year after I had class instruction I decided to meet the issue face to face on the basis of the above quotation from Science and Health. I realized that as a Christian Scientist I could not do God's work satisfactorily, nor receive the many blessings I should, if I continued to violate the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." With this thought I went to my teacher in Christian Science, told him I had decided to quit smoking, and asked him to help me. I shall never forget the moment when he said to me, "Divine Love will help you;" for at that moment the desire for smoking left me. The next day it seemed so unusual not to have a cigar in either my mouth or my hand! I lighted one of my favorite cigars, but the desire and so-called pleasure were entirely gone, and it was so distasteful I could not smoke it. Had I not personally experienced this change of thought, I would never have believed that the cigar, which previously had seemed so good and satisfying, could become so distasteful, and that the change of thought could be brought about instantly by a short yet powerful declaration of the truth about man and his relation to God. The fallacy that one must get rid of the nicotine poisoning in the system by degrees is a lie. I never felt the least ill effect from the instant I was healed; but I felt a great deal better, because of the wonderful demonstration of the power of God's law, as explained in Christian Science. I am very grateful that I replaced this cherished belief with a better understanding of the allness of God; for in less than a year after I quit smoking I was able to lay aside all material work and give my entire time to Christian Science practice. This I could not have done had I still been in bondage to the god of smoking.
Mrs. Eddy says on page 382 of Science and Health, "He [Jesus] annulled supposed laws of matter, opposed to the harmonies of Spirit, lacking divine authority and having only human approval for their sanction." I am more grateful each day for these wonderful explanations, given to us by our beloved Leader, of the works Jesus did and how he did them, as they enable us to annul human laws, and receive the many blessings that are ours, by being in harmony with God, our dear heavenly Father.
