The Testimony Meetings

Editor

The Wednesday evening testimony or experience meetings, rightly conducted, are a most valuable means of bringing the practical results of Christian Science to public attention.

Strangers in scores attend these meetings to learn if it indeed is true that people are daily being healed through a power above the ordinary material or physical methods, and that, too, not in isolated cases, as if by accident, but in multiplied hundreds of cases, as if by a fixed and certainly applicable law.

No sincere, unprejudiced listener can long attend these meetings without becoming convinced that there is being daily proven a fixed and certain law of healing that can only be accounted for on the ground that it is above and beyond the ordinary; that it is, in fact, a law or method which may well be called Divine. Christian Scientists consider every effect as flowing from a Cause—a Law—which, although above the comprehension of those not conversant therewith, is nevertheless a natural Cause, or Law, in the sense that the Spiritual is the only truly natural.

We should bear in mind that many attend these testimony meetings for the first time; that, maybe, they hear their first word of Christian Science there; that they have come to learn whether they can consistently give their assent to what is said; that they may be favorably or unfavorably impressed by what is said and the manner of its saying; and that this impression may remain with them indefinitely.

Those who speak, then, should be thoughtful of their expressions. They should, as it were, put themselves in the place of the stranger who comes to hear for the first time, and while fearlessly speaking the truth, should so temper their speech as neither to shock nor offend. Is it not well, also, to avoid the use of terms which are unfamiliar to strangers, and may be misunderstood by them, while the more familiar or commonly used expressions will answer as well and be as fully understood by Scientists?

They should avoid extravagance or the making of overdrawn pictures, but should let a simple, unostentatious recital of the facts tell their story. They should avoid stating things in such a way as to tax unnecessarily the credulity of the stranger. Indeed, the barest recital of the simple facts often does this, so marvelous, from the ordinary standpoint, are many of the cases of healing.

While the physical healing should be well brought out, the spiritual benefits, with all their attendant joys and upliftings, should not be neglected.

Let the wisdom of the serpent and the harmlessness of the dove especially govern in these meetings, and let us know assuredly that there is but one Power and one Wisdom that can have sway or presence there,—the divine Power and Wisdom.

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