Article September 30, 1911 Issue

DELIVERANCE AND GRATITUDE

KATHARINE OVERTON.

For some time I thought that a testimony could have little value for others if given by one who had not been helped out of some serious malady or physical injury, but now it seems to me otherwise, and that at any rate the benefit to the testifier may be sufficient ground for the offering, particularly one who has always had a dislike of seeing her name in print, and perhaps a stronger dislike, though unacknowledged, of having it printed in connection with Christian Science. The reaction was so great after the uprooting of that noxious prejudice that I had a conviction that nothing would satisfy me but to go straightway, never stopping, till I should feel upon my head in blessing and forgiveness the hand which in the stupidity of ignorance I had done my utmost to discredit in its work of uplifting humanity.

But study of the text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, soon got me away from that, and I saw how once and for all time and for all such offenders, when penitent, the voice of divinity had spoken peace in the prayer, "Father, forgive them." To testify is a helpful step without doubt, and the more diffident we are the greater is the help; but out of my own experience I would dare to counsel another who timidly dreads to express his gratitude, "Do not force yourself to do it as a task. Look to your growth, and then wait with patience. Expression will come naturally, like petals pressing from an outgrown calyx." Of a certainty no cause led as Christian Science has been led has need of grudging or fearsome support. The time must come to each one when the stones will seem to cry out for us in thankfulness for such leadership, and when that time comes the voice will come, and it will be lifted up in joy, not fear. We have not realized what was keeping us back; we have perhaps called it by pleasanter names.

One day near dusk, off a lonely shore, a company of friends out in a skiff were caught in a storm that quickly rolled up high breakers, and seeing they would not be able to beach the boat in the cove where camp was established, they rowed into an untried cove where they barely got through the surf in safety, though everybody was drenched. Both rowers, one from each side, plunged into the last breaker before it swept in upon the beach. in order to steady the boat and to keep it from being sucked back in the undertow. We then seemed shut in by an almost perpendicular cliff encircling the small cove, menaced by the tide which would soon be flooding in. At first no trail could be found, but at last a narrow cleft was discovered, filled with the loose earth of the mesa above, and one of our number started laboriously upward, calling upon the rest to follow.

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