At one time my husband and I were traveling by automobile and had occasion to cross a river at a point where there was no bridge, and an old-fashioned ferry furnished the only means of transportation. It was past the hour for the regular ferryman to be on duty, and a friend of ours, experienced in the handling of the ferry, offered to help us. The river was crossed without difficulty, and the ferry secured according to custom by means of a heavy chain. My husband, who was driving, started to pilot the machine off the ferry and on to the road, which rose so abruptly from the point of landing as to be dangerously precipitous.
As the car was being driven off the ferry boat, the front wheels of the car were forced up the steep bank and the powerful driving force of the rear wheels—still on the ferry— caused the chain with which the boat had been anchored to the landing to be disengaged. Instantly the boat was whirled from under the car and shot out nearly to midstream. The car was simultaneously dropped from the landing apron of the boat into an untenable position, the front end of the car headed up the steep ascent of the landing, the rear submerged by the rushing waters of the river; and there it remained, held by the brakes, until our friend secured it by chains to the ferry anchorage. Just a few inches behind the rear wheels might be seen the edge of a precipice dropping perhaps thirty or forty feet to the river bottom. From a position in which it seemed physically impossible for brakes to have held a heavy car and which would have appeared to involve certain drowning, we emerged quite uninjured, with an unceasing song of praise in our hearts for this intimate proof of our "spiritual communion with the one God" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, p. 35). We were comfortably housed for the night; and the next day, when the car was recovered by the use of stump-pulling machinery, most of the people of the countryside came down to the ferry crossing to view the scene of the rescue. They seemed unable to comprehend our deliverance. This demonstration unfolded a better understanding of the protection which we are able to prove instantly in times of acute danger. The subject of our Lesson-Sermon that week was ''God the Only Cause and Creator," which had been read aloud as we were driving in the afternoon.
A clearer understanding of the words of our dear Leader from Science and Health (p. 323) that "Truth is demonstrable when understood, and that good is not understood until demonstrated," also resulted from this experience. Complete unity of Life and its expression was proved instantaneously, Unfolding to us a deeper sense of gratitude for Life itself, which is God.
