When a volcano in the eastern mountains of Bali, Indonesia, erupted about two years ago, I was staying with my daughter in a remote house about two thousand feet up the mountain. We could see the rocks thrown out of the crater, and soon rivers of treacly black mud and torrents of very hot water rushed down, followed by lava which destroyed everything in its path. I was the only student of Christian Science in the house. I turned away from the material evidence of destruction to the truth of Christian Science that man is spiritual and indestructible.
Wounded, terrified natives and cattle fled from the higher villages. They were fleeing from the wrath (as they thought) of their gods. I held to the comfort of the ninety-first Psalm, verses 2 and 3 of which read: "I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust. Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence." Every verse of the Psalm seemed to have been written for comfort in just these circumstances.
For weeks we lived in an atmosphere of strange-smelling gases. Showers of soot, grit, and sulphur flakes rained down. There was a continuous shaking of the mountain and the incessant noise of bubbling lava, but no ill befell us, though it appeared to be all around us.
