Article August 4, 1917 Issue

Gratitude to Mrs. Eddy

FLORENCE CLERIHEW BOYD

To the student of Christian Science it seems strange that any one should object to Christian Scientists expressing their gratitude to Mrs. Eddy, whether publicly or privately, though many can recall their own former impatience with such expressions. The writer had had many blessings from Truth before she was really grateful to the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Gratitude came as the result of an experience which occurred in the first year's study of Mrs. Eddy's teachings.

The writer's baby had been taken seriously ill, and as the father was several hundred miles away, this added to the mother's sense of human responsibility. The efforts to realize the truth of being were earnest and sincere, but for six days the little one seemed to be growing steadily worse. During this time the mother had held the child in her arms night and day. Any attempt to lay her in her crib resulted in such moans that the human sense of love was stirred and the child was immediately gathered into the mother's arms. All efforts to study the daily Bible Lesson were futile, because it seemed impossible to hold both the child and the lesson books.

On the seventh day the evidence of illness was greater than it had been at any time before. The mother felt that she needed to know spiritual reality so well that her fear would be destroyed and she would rise above this evidence. All day she repeated Mrs. Eddy's words, "Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme" (Science and Health, p. 17). and prayed, "O God, enable me to know!" When at ten o'clock that night the baby slept, the mother laid the child in the crib and ran for her Quarterly, Bible, and Science and Health, then sat down, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, to feed on the bread of life. In the spiritual refreshment which followed there came "the peace of God, which passeth all understanding," and she was indeed enabled to know that "God is omnipotent, supreme." It was not necessary to look at the sleeping babe for evidence of improvement; it was not necessary to watch for the disappearance of the various symptoms which had characterized the illness. The calm of spiritual understanding had come, bringing the knowledge of God's presence and power.

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