One noon during the depression years I was alone in my small duplex apartment when the doorbell rang. On answering it. I found a large rough-looking man at the door, who said, "Madam, will you please give me a dime?" I do not give money to strangers under such circumstances; so I refused his request. As he turned away, however, I had a strong desire to help him; so I prayed, "Father, what can I do for this man?" Very clearly the thought came to me, "Feed him."
I said to the man, "I can't give you money, but if you are hungry, I will gladly share some food with you." He came in, and while he ate I found things to do at the sink. At first he talked a great deal. He said he had lost his job, his home, his wife, and everything that he cared about. Then he told about a man who robbed a woman of her purse as she was getting off a trolley. At this point I felt a little uneasy, but I silently declared the truth concerning man, who is made in God's image and likeness, as I had learned it in Christian Science.
After a little he wanted to know if there was anyone in the house. Suddenly I was filled with fear, but I silently declared that God was with me, guarding and guiding me, and that man, His likeness, was incapable of harming any of God's ideas. All fear left me.
For a few moments he was silent. I turned around and asked, "Won't you have some more food?"
He said, "No, I am reading this thing on the wall." Several weeks before I had framed a card that I bought in a Christian Science Reading Room. It contained Mrs. Eddy's words on page 210 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" under the title, "What Our Leader Says." The man was leaning over the table reading these immortal words which admonish us: "Beloved Christian Scientists, keep your minds so filled with Truth and Love, that sin, disease, and death cannot enter them."
I kept silent, and a few minutes later the man arose and thanked me. As he went to the door, I gave him a published copy of a Christian Science lecture. "I'll read it tonight in my room," he said. Then he stood outside the door, holding it almost closed, and said: "Madam, never let a strange man into your house again. One time a woman did that, and the man robbed her." He closed the door and hurried down the steps.
I stood there almost stunned for a moment. Then I thanked God for His loving protection, for Mrs. Eddy's words on my kitchen wall, and for the Christian Science lecture. I knew that the seed of Truth had been sown.
Christian Science has been my only medicine for more than twenty years. Through its study and application, I have been healed of many discordant conditions. One Monday night, some months after I had joined a branch church, I became very ill. Since I was alone in the house and had no telephone, there was no way to obtain help from others. All night I struggled, declaring the truth with almost every painful, difficult breath. I tried to know that God is the only power; therefore no other power exists that could control either my thinking or my body.
When morning came, there was very little improvement. However, I was on a church committee which prepared literature for distribution, and I finally decided that since my place was at the church that morning, I must not let this difficulty keep me from being there. Putting myself in God's care, I went, knowing that all must be well. While I was preparing our periodicals for distribution, my thoughts were filled with gratitude for the privilege of working for the church, and for the periodicals, which would serve as missionaries to those seeking Truth. Suddenly I discovered that I was completely free from the difficulty.
Several years after this I was instantaneously healed of another distressing ailment while sitting in a Christian Science Reading Room. I had refused to give in to the suggestion that I should not leave the house alone because I might fall in the street. In that Reading Room was a small skylight. For some time I sat looking at it and thinking about Mrs. Eddy and her little attic room with its skylight where she wrote Science and Health. I became filled with gratitude as I thought of the many sacrifices she had made so that she might share with the world her precious discovery of Christian Science. After two hours of study I walked from the Reading Room completely healed.
Thank God for our churches, Reading Rooms, literature, and all other activities through which we obtain an understanding of the Christ, Truth. And thank God for Mrs. Eddy, who made these activities possible.— Los Angeles, California.
