Article October 1, 1910 Issue

RESULTS FROM ONE TESTIMONY

LILLIAN HALES TURNER.

Few , perhaps, realize how far-reaching is the good that comes from the giving of testimonies at the Wednesday evening meetings. By way of illustration, let me tell of the help that came to two homes recently as the result of a testimony given in an experience meeting ten or more years ago. The woman who gave the testimony said substantially, that if we were told we indulged habitually many thoughts of hatred, each of us would probably deny the charge, as did she, believing that hatred was a mental quality foreign to her disposition. Upon turning the searchlight upon her thoughts, however, she found that she was indulging the sense of hate in many ways, such as hating certain idiosyncrasies and faults in others, conditions in environment, hating to perform rightful duties in the home, in society, in church work, with all that they entailed. When roused to the condition she proceeded to correct it, and gave an illustration of how she did it.

Among other things, she disliked walking, and although she lived within easy walking distance of the church, she always avoided the walk, taking a long, round-about streetcar route in preference. Realizing that this dislike was only another form of hatred, she began to reverse this kind of thought by knowing that activity is natural, that it is natural to love to walk. Following the thought with the active doing, she walked to and from church and at all times when it was the normal thing to do, and within a short time, to her own surprise, she found that she enjoyed walking, and thereafter did much of it.

Recently this testimony was told in response to a remark a woman made about some inharmonious condition in her home. Some weeks later she said, "I want to tell you how much help that thought about the overcoming of hatred has given. There has been such a change in our family; there is so much more harmony; not one of the children has been sick; and I am feeling just splendid." She said further that she had told the testimony to her sister, and that two weeks later her sister had said to her: "You know how I have always hated housework? Since I last saw you I have been housecleaning, and have done most of the work myself, and the marvel is that I enjoyed it; it did not make me tired or sick, as it formerly always did. That testimony about hatred which you told me changed my entire thought about the work and has made me happy in it."

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