Article November 5, 1910 Issue

A GRATEFUL TRIBUTE

EUGENIE REEVES.

In the 35th chapter of Isaiah we read: "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." In the midst of the isolation and solitude in which my son, now fifteen, and I live, alone on a prairie homestead, a mile or two from the nearest inhabited house, we have daily practical demonstration of the help and ever-presence of divine Love, and thus the wilderness is made glad for us. We have been helped in every way. The privations to which we are subjected seem as nothing when we think of Love's ever-presence, and we both agree that the former life of comparative luxury without Christian Science, cannot in the least compare with the calm, the trust, the peace of mind, the faith, and the health of the present, although we are surrounded by what many would think to be roughness and poverty.

In August of last year my son was away, and in the evening, as I was watching for his return, I noticed heavy storm-clouds coming from the south, and bearing directly toward us. A two-mile walk across the prairie during a thunder-storm would have been to material sense a dangerous experience, but I quieted my own disturbed thought, and realized the truth of our dear Leader's words, "His arm encircles me, and mine, and all" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 389). Very soon the heavy clouds passed away to the eastward, and a few days afterward we heard that it was a hail-storm and had done some damage elsewhere. Had it kept on the course it was taking when I first saw it, our little crop would have been wiped out. Again, at the season when prairie fires are so prevalent, there was one raging on three sides of us. The wind rose and it seemed as if we must be burned out. I sat down and read aloud from Science and Health for a time. Then, as I arose and looked out of the window, I saw that the wind had changed and was blowing the fire away from us, and we were safe. This recalls the words of the 91st Psalm: "Because thou thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee."

We have also been wonderfully helped in the care and training of our animals. We got a yoke of oxen which turned out to be so wild that men were afraid of them, but with us they were always gentle and quiet. A man whom I engaged to break them in was so rough with them that we took them in hand ourselves, and by treating them with the understanding gained in Science, of man's God-given dominion, we soon trained them to do any kind of work, but for a long time they would not let a stranger come near them. Of course we easily overcome the belief of fatigue; and health we recognize as a divinely bestowed quality, which we must reflect. Owing to the scarcity of hired laborers, and our small means, we do all the work of this little farm ourselves, knowing that divine intelligence and strength are ours at all times.

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A GRATEFUL TRIBUTE

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