Early in my study of Christian Science I decided to commit a statement of substance to memory so that I would always have it with me in time of need. I turned to the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, and happened to open it to page 468. "The scientific statement of being" was what I read, and since it appealed to me, I memorized it. It reads: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."
I was soon to make a long airplane trip. On previous plane trips I had experienced airsickness, and as the time drew near for this flight I began to fear a recurrence of the problem. Then, at the hotel where I was awaiting service to the airport, I actually became ill. When I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me, she asked that I read the first verse of Mrs. Eddy's poem "The Mother's Evening Prayer" (Poems, p. 4).Poems, p. 4. It's set to music as a series of hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal (Nos. 207-212) and begins:
O gentle presence, peace and joy and power;
O Life divine, that owns each waiting hour,
Thou Love that guards the nestling's faltering flight!
Keep Thou my child on upward wing tonight.
