Article July 17, 1909 Issue

HELP IN TIME OF NEED

SARAH J. E. SOLLEY.

In Science and Health (p. 301) Mrs. Eddy tells us: "Few persons comprehend what Christian Science means and by the word reflection," and it was, as I understand, by means of "reflection" that I obtained the result to which I refer below.

In January, 1907, I was engaged to demonstrate what might be done with dye-stuffs to improve the rug-making carried on at the Morgan Memorial Cooperative Stores and Industries of Boston, Mass. The ability to undertake the word required was in itself a demonstration of the mightly power of Christian Science to heal. One year before (1906) I had been suffering from irritation of the spinal cord, and doomed to perpetual pain by the physicians, with no permanent relief. Now I was well, free from all suffering, able to go where I pleased and do what I pleased, capable of enduring hardship and fatigue. This improvement had come, in the first instance through Mrs. Eddy's thought as given in Science and Health, without the aid of a practitioner; so that I asked beyond doubt that the power was of God. Later I asked help from a Christian Scientist in Boston, to whose wise counsel and constant admonition I owe more than words can tell. Owing to the condition of affairs at the Morgan Memorial at the time, my dye-shop was in the basement, and all my equipment was crude and commonplace, nevertheless I was able to work there in the coldest weather and on the hottest days. Here I made the necessary experiments, and turned Out forty to sixty yards of carpet each day, dyed to order—sometimes to shade—with my own hands, and preferably without help.

There problems were given me to solve, and in working them out I was to verify the faith of those by whom my services had been engaged. I was given to understand that these problems had hitherto been deemed impossible of solution by the "trade," the first being to dye ingrain carpet in the piece, without cutting and fraying, i.e., to make the dye-stuff penetrate the fiber so that when cut it was all alike. The second was to dye Brussels carpet so that it should be a solid color when cut and frayed. There are two, sometimes three fibers in Brussels carpet, viz., the linen warp, the wool filling, and sometimes jute interwoven with the wool. All these take different shades in the dye-bath, and colors suitable for wool often will not "take" on linen at all, while they always give a different shade. The third problem was to make a regular set design in the kind of rugs manufactured at the Morgan Memorial. These rugs are made from short strips of cut and frayed carpet, in appearance like tape with raw edges. Owing to the nature of this material it had been deemed impossible to make a square, for instance, of one color on a ground of another color.

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