Article October 14, 1905 Issue

Another Summer Experience

REV. JESSE L. FONDA.

I was on a steamer, going across Lake Michigan to have a little outing with some friends. It is my custom to go all over a boat that I travel on, so I was on the lower deck, trying to see what was there. As I looked down into the dark at something, I came close to a little iron pipe that looked innocent enough, and quite naturally put out my hand to lean against it. I let go quickly, for it was real live steam pipe! Of course the old sense of being burned asserted itself, and the thought of pain was much in evidence. I met the sense of pain with the usual scientific denials and the assertion of Mind's control over all.

In my early study of Christian Science, a friend referred to the old idea that nature is really benevolent in providing pain, which, like a sentinel, stands guard over the body to tell when harm comes to it. I was asked, How would one know that he was hurt except for pain? How would he be led to take care of an injury except for the pain? To this it may be answered that if we had a full understanding of spiritual being, we could not be burned any more than were the three Hebrew children, nor the bush that burned, but "was not consumed." They body would then reflect the divine government, so that injuries would be impossible. Even with our present immature understanding of Truth, we find in Christian Science a far more benevolent provision for our need, in cases of injury, than that which makes pain a necessity to our safety.

In the care of an injury, no less than in disease, the scientific, spiritual method is greatly superior to any medical method. In applying the former there is only a brief period of pain, if any at all, seldom any soreness or swelling, and no abiding fear of being hurt. If some of the kind-hearted doctors and nurses knew the quieting power that there is in the understanding of divine Mind. the healing that flows from divine intelligence and the uplifting that comes from a sense of the presence of divine Love, they would not toil so anxiously and laboriously with mindless matter, which has no inspiration to ennoble thought.

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