A Christian Science testimony meeting is usually characterized by a sense of joy, quiet efficiency, harmony, and peace. It appears to have nothing in common with the clamor and confusion, the excitement and danger, of the horse yard on the large Australian outback cattle runs. Yet the two places have something in common. To each there is always a lifting sense of expectancy, of opportunity, the challenge to achieve. The stockyard advice, "Don't ride the rail," given to aspiring young horsemen, could well be given to the timid, inarticulate student at the midweek testimony meeting.
This advice is a warning against a negative complacency and a consequent loss of helpful opportunities. Riding the rail instead of the fresh, rebellious, young buck-jumpers when they are first being testridden for the mustering camp is the safe but unproductive resort of the unprogressive and the fearful. Seated on the rail, the timid seek to share vicariously some sense of the victory, even if not experiencing the necessary practice and sacrifice which alone make victory possible.
Active participation in an activity tends to fashion one into an effective unit in which he successfully takes an essential part. It matters not whether that part is in the rough and tumble of the cattle camp or in the more dignified serenity of an active Christian Science testimony meeting.
It takes courage for the inexperienced to accept the advice, "Don't ride the rail," and to testify at such a meeting, giving proofs of God's care for man. But they who accept the challenge, master their fears, and make the attempt, grow in confidence, courage, enthusiasm, and skill.
Christian Science reveals that it is not the disciplining of the human thought by force that imparts the qualities of the divine Mind and turns a difficulty into a success. It is, rather, the recognition of these qualities as already ours in reality and the application of them. This recognition enables us to use the humanly difficult, whether mastering a fractious horse or giving a testimony, as an opportunity to demonstrate a fuller measure of our God given freedom and dominion. As we accept the real, spiritual status of ourselves, any worthwhile activity becomes imbued with divine significance.
In the parables of the sower and the seed, the ten talents, and the wedding guests, Jesus conveyed to his hearers the spiritual significance of human experiences. He thus helped them to recognize in some degree the relationship between the human and the divine.
As we through Christian Science spiritualize our concepts of human activity and recognize the benefits gained and the progress made through our honest application of spiritual truths, familiar experiences may be used as stepping-stones to higher opportunities and activities which more closely parallel the divine. We are thus able to elevate the giving of a testimony and the testimony meeting itself and to relate them to their basic reality as specific instances of the divine Mind expressing itself through its highest idea, man.
As we prayerfully support our meetings through the earnest study of the Scriptures and of the writings of our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, our thought is inspired to perceive the divine significance of these meetings. The Psalmist gives us a Scriptural parallel in the one hundred and seventh Psalm. Here he sets forth the idea that God redeems mankind through mercy and goodness. He repeatedly stresses the necessity of praise for such redemption. In verse 8 he says, "Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men!" He also urges praise publicly in the congregation and in the assembly.
In speaking of our testimony meetings, which were at one time held on Friday rather than on Wednesday, our Leader provides us with what may be termed a human parallel to the divine idea. On page 149 of "Miscellaneous Writings," she says: "Invite all cordially and freely to this banquet of Christian Science, this feast and flow of Soul. Ask them to bring what they possess of love and light to help leaven your loaf and replenish your scanty store." If a banquet is to be a success, the preparation for it would need to be one of joyous anticipation, happy expectation, and unselfish cooperation.
The contributing of these qualities of thought would turn even a dull picnic into a banquet of joy and happiness. Our testimony meetings, so supported, would be an inspiring and continuous success. Let us, then, use the familiar success-contributing qualities of the happy picnic, which qualities we all possess and have so easily and repeatedly expressed, as stepping-stones to the not-so-familiar and, to some, more difficult task of contributing to and testifying at our Wednesday meetings.
To the timid, the assurance of David in II Samuel is wonderfully encouraging (23:2), "The Spirit of the Lord spake by me, and his word was in my tongue." The knowledge that it is God speaking through us destroys the fear that we may speak of our blessings falteringly or that we may take pride in speaking of them fluently.
On page 183 of "Miscellaneous Writings,"our Leader shows us how we may fulfill this Scriptural assurance: "Man is God's image and likeness; whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God's reflection. Through the transparency of Science we learn this, and receive it: learn that man can fulfil the Scriptures in every instance; that if he open his mouth it shall be filled—not by reason of the schools, or learning, but by the natural ability, that reflection already has bestowed on him, to give utterance to Truth."
The writer will always be grateful that he was awakened to see and use a helpful human parallel as a stepping-stone to giving this "utterance to Truth." Month after month he had attended the testimony meetings. He tried to voice his gratitude for the blessings Christian Science had brought him, but he was too afraid. Each meeting was for him a weekly struggle with this fear. Striving to rise above it one evening, he remembered distinctly the old familiar advice, "Don't ride the rail." Awakened, he saw its related significance. Encouraged by past overcomings through following this advice, he soon, although still much afraid, gave his first testimony.
For some time the undercurrent of fear persisted and made testifying difficult. To reach the culminating point where desire was translated into action, the stockyard words, "Don't ride the rail," continued to be a helpful and necessary reminder. The assurance of David and the truths of Christian Science enable us to relinquish progressively the human stepping-stones. Strengthening faith, they elevate for use in God's service the one familiar human talent which at the moment may seem to be all that we possess.
On page 10 of her Message to The Mother Church for 1902, Mrs. Eddy writes, "Utilizing the capacities of the human mind uncovers new ideas, unfolds spiritual forces, the divine energies, and their power over matter, molecule, space, time, mortality."
Complete freedom from the fear of testifying comes, as it did to the writer, when we utilize in God's service our present human capacities. Then new ideas are uncovered, and spiritual forces unfold. Such prayerful support will do much to elevate our meetings from the personal to the universal that they may evidence the uninterrupted "feast and flow of Soul." They will then no longer be a weekly accusation of unhealed personal fear to the timid riders of the rail.
Each testimony meeting, and every aspect of it, is a local facet of a universal whole. It is evidence of divine Principle, Love, universally glorying in its own infinite beneficence, perpetually operating through omnipresent, changeless law. This law, operating in our consecrated thinking, is every moment contributing to the meeting. Our contributions, then, will never be those of fear, pride, prejudice, criticism, and the like, but they will be the spiritual leaven "of love and light." So thinking, we shall in God's own time and in God's own way be led to speak freely and helpfully, thus demonstrating the divine Mind's replenishing of our "scanty store."
Let us, then, thus prepare for and contribute to our testimony meetings. As we do so, the stranger will feel and respond to their warmth and welcome; the darkness of the sinner will be rent with a shaft of the divine light and life; and all who will may come and gather the crumbs of Christliness which we, no longer riding the rail of selfish fear and stagnation, contribute and distribute.
