Article July 23, 1910 Issue

ACKNOWLEDGING OUR GRATITUDE

MARY STEWART.

The present writer conceives the first testimonial meetings, held in the early days of Christian Science teaching and experience, to have been the spontaneous gathering of those persons who had "heard" the word and those who wished to hear, for the purpose of testifying to "the healing and regenerating power" of Truth which some of them had actually experienced and others had observed. It is difficult to think that any of those who were present on such occasions, drawn thither by gratitude and love, could have hesitated to tell their good news. Is it not more probable, because more natural, that their simple and grateful testimonies were eagerly told, not only in just acknowledgment of the power of Truth and Love, which had done the works, but with sincere longing that others should receive like help, and with such self-forgetfulness that the narrators did not obstruct the light, but rather became transparencies for it?

It is impossible to imagine their waiting till "some other time," when the needy were before them and the consciousness of the goodness and power of God filled their hearts; or that any one of them took critical note of the manner of speech or the construction of the "letter" of those testimonies; or that any kept silent because he feared such criticism.

There is but one opinion entertained regarding the "nine" who were cleansed of leprosy but who did not return to give thanks, and a criticism of the manner or words in which the one who did return expressed his recognition of the healing Christ, would be at least unique. The man healed of blindness from birth gave his testimony in a meeting composed of those who marveled and who desired to know what had healed him. Here is his simple, direct, unmistakable acknowledgment: "One thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see." And of the one through whose purity and understanding of God the healing was made possible, he said: "If this man were not of God, he could do nothing."

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