Article March 11, 1911 Issue

A PROBLEM AND ITS RESULTS

DAVENPORT BROMFIELD.

Some time ago the writer had an experience which brought home to him most vividly the faithfulness and devotion of the Discoverer of Christian Science, which enabled her to reveal God to a suffering world as the divine Principle of being. The writer, a civil engineer, had sent an assistant with a field party to make an exact survey of a road some three miles in length, using in the work a scientific instrument supposed to be in perfect adjustment. The survey, which necessitated the recording of many angles with mathematical accuracy, was completed and the notes of the same turned into the office. There being no other way of checking the work or proving its correctness, the writer accompanied his assistant to the field and resurveyed portions of the work, checking the angles at various points. The result tended to show that there was a constant error in the work, due not to the inefficiency of the assistant, but to the instrument being out of adjustment.

Having arrived at this conclusion, the engineer decided to spend an evening in the endeavor to find the amount of error in the instrumental work, and correct each angle in the work accordingly. After studying over the matter for several hours and trying many premises, the correct constant or rule was discovered, which when applied to each of the various angles taken in the survey rectified each, and therefore the whole survey. The whole evening had been spent in discovering the rule of right which when applied with mathematical precision to each of the innumerable errors, caused them all to disappear and produced harmony in the entire work. The remarkable part of this correction was that the whole process was mental, and the survey was made right without any further work in the field or even the mechanical adjustment of the instrument.

While pondering over this effort and its result with great satisfaction, the thought suddenly came, "This is just what Mrs. Eddy did in regard to the problem of mortal existence with all its claims of error, sin, sickness, and death." In her book "Retrospection and Introspection," speaking of her discovery of the Principle of Mind-healing, she says, "During twenty years prior to my discovery I had been trying to trace all physical effects to a mental cause; and in the latter part of 1866 I gained the scientific certainty that all causation is Mind, and every effect a mental phenomenon" (p. 24). Thus once more is brought home to us the wonderful steadfastness of purpose, the great yearning to discover Truth, and the love for her fellow-men manifested during all these years by the Discoverer of Christian Science.

Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Article
OUTLINING
March 11, 1911
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit