Article August 18, 1906 Issue

Patient Continuance in Well Doing

WILLIS F. GROSS.

Every earnest and experienced Christian Science practitioner has had abundant proofs of God's love and power, manifest in the rapid and in many cases the well-nigh instantaneous restoration of the sick to health and the speedy liberation of those in bondage to the enslaving senses. He has had great reason to rejoice that humanity is learning how to avail itself of divine help. He has marveled at the might of omnipotence, and oftentimes he has been led to exclaim, in the language of the psalmist, "Who is so great a God as our God?" The evidence of God's willingness and ability to supply human need in all the varied phases of experience, has quickened and increased the desire to know Him who, as the psalmist has declared, forgiveth all our iniquities and healeth all our diseases.

Marvelous works which seem to compel conviction are not, however, the only reasons for the Christian Scientist's faith. The writer has been most deeply impressed and greatly helped by cases of physical and moral healing which have been realized only as the result of faithful work and patient waiting; when days have passed into weeks, weeks have become months, and the months have not been few. The hand of God is seen in these works, and the wise student gains help and encouragement therefrom. We would not convey the impression that in these instances God withheld the blessing so much desired, but we would call attention to the fact that these faithful toilers were encouraged, strengthened, and sustained in their work until it was possible for them to realize the blessing already bestowed upon the children of God. They were not left comfortless. The need of the hour was supplied, and in their struggle with temptation they came off more than conquerors. Day by day faith grew stronger because of error overcome. and they were inspired with greater and still greater confidence. They would have yielded to discouragement and given up in despair, or else fainted by the way, if they had not received strength from on high. Human will or wisdom could not have sustained them or made it possible to walk by faith when material sense was unable to perceive the way before them or give any assurance as to what was to be the outcome. Divine Love enabled them to press on, looking "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen," until the unseen things of Spirit became so real that the illusion of physical and moral inharmony was dispelled. Then did they rejoice with joy unspeakable, rendering "unto God the things that are God's."

It may help and encourage those who are to-day learning the much-needed lesson of patience, to consider some of the phases of error which have been overcome by those who have fought a good fight and finally gained the victory.

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