Since gaining some understanding of Christian Science, I have often thought of the old saying, "What fools these mortals be!" How foolish I was to think that what I did concerned myself only, and what a difference it has made to me since I began to understand something of what Paul meant when he said (Rom. 12:5), "So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another." What brings a blessing to one brings a blessing to all. There is but one adversary, the evil one, or one evil. Its false claims are legion.
There came a time in my experience when I felt the need of church membership. It came to me that as the Church of Christ, Scientist, needed members to carry on its redemptive work, there should be a place for my quickened consciousness in a Christian Science church. I learned that total abstinence from the indulgence in alcoholic drinks and tobacco was among the requirements for membership. At this time I did not like what Mary Baker Eddy had to say about intoxicating beverages, and I was greatly irked at her statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 407), "Puffing the obnoxious fumes of tobacco, or chewing a leaf naturally attractive to no creature except a loathsome worm, is at least disgusting."
Finally it came to me that as she had been inspired by God to give Christian Science to the world in just the way that she did, she was writing not only for her time but for all time, and that in so far as I knew, she had never yet been proved wrong, so she was no doubt right about these things also. So I started out in earnest to make my demonstration of freedom over these two false appetites. I had heard and read many testimonies about how such desires left others quickly and easily, and while this was true of the desire for cigars, I seemed to have quite a battle to silence the false appetite for cigarettes and liquor.
