Article September 18, 1909 Issue

GIVING AND INCREASE

KATHARINE ERWIN JERVEY

Perhaps the most difficult task which confronts one who is trying to be a Christian Scientist, is that of giving testimony at the Wednesday evening meetings. This has been my own experience, and others have told me the same of themselves. It seems much easier to do our silent work in the sanctuary of our own consciousness, and this silent work is very important, but we are told that there is "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak,"—a time to feed ourselves, and a time to give lovingly to others of our store, however large or small the stock may be. There can be no doubt that all who have endeavored to practise Christian Science in any degree have received some benefit therefrom. All may not as yet have experienced physical healing, but some good comes through any and every honest effort to live up to this high standard, and some knowledge of God is gained, which immediately multiplies itself if shared.

Sometimes our own knowledge of divine Science appears to us so small that it seems absurd to attempt to divide it, and the temptation often comes to hoard up what little we have, as a miser does his gold, and to add to it every crumb which we can get from others or from our study of the Bible and our text-book. Many times, however, I have been helped out of this miserly thought by the Bible story of the widow's cruse. We are told that she had only a handful of meal and a little oil in a cruse to feed herself and her son. At first, when Elijah begged "a morsel of bread," she feared to give any of her scanty store. not realizing how inexhaustible is the divine source of supply; but after she had shared her little store of food with the man of God, she found that "she, and he, and her house, did eat many days, and the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail."

The story of the loaves and fishes is also most helpful. To the disciples, the feeding of five thousand with the few loaves and fishes which constituted their supply of food, seemed an utter impossibility, but they did not withhold it on this account. They gave it willingly at the Master's command, and the wonderful multiplication took place, so that "they did all eat, and were filled," and there remained to those who had given their all, twelve baskets full.

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