Article June 7, 1900 Issue

Christian Science in Paris

Extract from a Letter.

Lilla Ames

We have been in Paris nearly a month, and have grown to love the little Science meetings very much The two Scientists at the head of the work here seem very earnest, loving, and loyal. Of course we called on them the day after we arrived, and they gave us a cordial welcome. The services are held in a private hall in the Hotel Continental, a beautiful, commodious room, which seems in itself a distinct demonstration, as also the apartment in which these Scientists live. It seems they were asked to leave their former quarters on account of their faith, and Love has given them one of its "many mansions" which is all they could have wished, and far better than the former one.

Sunday mornings the service is in English and the audience mostly American. Each Sunday now there are more, as visitors are arriving for the Exposition. Last Sunday the room was fairly full, perhaps sixty were there. In the afternoon the service is in French. The only reading in English at this service is from Science and Health. Mrs. B. reads each paragraph from Science and Health as it comes, in English, and then Mlle. D. translates it into French. It seems to me her translation is a beautiful demonstration. One doesn't seem to lose the sense at all. The French people who are interested come of course in the afternoon. It would touch your heart to see a man, as I have, following with his finger each word as it is read from our text-book, first in English and then in French, that he may get the full meaning of it,—a man who works till ten o'clock every night and gets up Sundays at four o'clock in the morning that he may get through his work in order to come Sunday afternoon. His great longing is to learn English and H. and I offered to help him, but he has no time. He has caught the Spirit and the lack of the letter cannot hinder him. His wife is with him but not so strong a character as he.

We are having some work done by a French woman who is being healed through Mlle. She never expected to walk again. She has taken her boy out of a convent, and she is now going through a class and seems to drink in the Truth. I just cite these two cases; there are I should think from fifteen to twenty who are interested, and we are becoming acquainted with them all. When you realize that all they get of Science and Health is Mlle.'s translation on Sunday and the treatment sometimes, you can see how beautiful this work of the Spirit is.

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