For four months I have been living in the country away...

Mary A. Bayrd

For four months I have been living in the country away from home, no Christian Science Church or fellow-worker in our cause within many miles. After spending the morning of our communion Sunday in the reading of the lesson, and of the last two numbers of our Sentinel, I am moved to express my gratitude for the truth contained in every line of the pages I have read.

No one who has not been separated for a long time from all the other privileges of our church life can understand what good food for those who are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, is brought to them by the Bible, Science and Health, and the periodical publication. It is indeed a "table prepared in the wilderness." The thought of how the presence and power of divine Love have guided and protected me in a new and strange life, away from all human assistance, how I have been given understanding and power, health and strength, in the presence of doubt and fear all around me, brings with it feeling of profound thankfulness to God and to our Leader, and a new-born hope for the future.

The blessings of the past are ours; the failures cannot drag us back to live with them. Concerning them, Paul said, "Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

Christian Science found me a singularly wayward and unruly child, a puzzle to all about me, and even more of an enigma to myself. I had an intense longing for something better, and a morbid sense of discouragement. I seemed to have no power of perseverance. Temptations multiplied and I seemed to be powerless to overcome them, but I was keenly conscious of what I ought to do, and longed almost without hope for something to free me from the bondage.

Six years have passed, and in that time Truth has led me, slowly but surely, step by step, from darkness into light, from fear and doubt into freedom and peace, from despair and discouragement into hope that knows no faltering, from uncertain and spasmodic efforts into a steady, earnest purpose in life, such as must come to every Christian Scientist who sees the work before him and remembers the blessings of the past.

Having a doubting, inquiring mind, I should have floundered many a time but for the sure refuge offered me in every time of need. Science furnished ever a true, logical, and consistent answer to my questionings, understanding to guide me in my struggles, love to correct my selfishness and sin, and strength to offset my helplessness.

Blessed are the children of Christian Science. Blessed is the thought that, every day, every hour, in every place, under every difficulty, under all the various circumstances that in times past have perplexed and cast down the human mind, we can know that we have nothing to fear, that we are free to work, to grow, to learn, and to be happy, that it is ours to enjoy the "glorious liberty of the children of God," and that "Divine Love always has met, and always will meet, every human need" (Science and Health, p. 494).

Mary A. Bayrd, Chicago, Ill.

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