ONE OF OUR OBLIGATIONS

ABBIE J. BAIN.

After the election of readers in a branch church the church has before it a testing time. The first year's experience after new readers are installed is usually supposed to be a test of their ability, but close observation will reveal the fact that it is also a testing time for the congregation. In thinking upon this subject the writer recalled an experience of the children of Israel, and its study may be helpful to others. It began at the time when Moses, directed by God, struck the rock and the waters gushed forth in streams to supply the need of the famished and thirsting host of Israel. We can well appreciate their gratitude and their increased faith in "so great a God," one who could meet their need in this dire extremity, in the midst of the wilderness where there was no water. No doubt they felt, after such a proof as this, that they could rely upon His care for every need.

They were, however, soon put to the test in quite a different way. We read that they were attacked by the Amalekites, a tribe who made war upon them at various times, with the persistent intention of preventing their entrance into the promised land. We find these assailants appearing and reappearing from the time of Moses to the reign of Saul, always alert and aggressive. In this particular attack, Joshua was chosen leader of the armies of Israel to repel the Amalekites. The battle was being waged in the valley, and Moses, accompanied by Aaron and Hur, the record says, stood upon a very high place witnessing the scene. While Moses stood with hands raised heavenward, the Israelites prevailed; but when his hands became weary and heavy and sank to his side, immediately the tide of battle seemed to turn and the Amalekites prevailed over the Israelites. Then Aaron and Hur, we read, "stayed up his hands, the one on the one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun." Thus Joshua, leading the hosts of Israel, discomfited the Amalekites and won the victory.

How like this is our experience! We have been drinking of the waters which flow from the spiritual rock,—Christ, Truth. We have been filled with gladness that proofs of Truth's sustaining power have come to us in the wilderness of lost hopes, doubts, and fears. We feel that nothing could be too great for Truth to accomplish, and we want the world to share it with us, but we have yet to learn that after our enemy is repulsed in the open, it may reappear in a more subtle form. The Amalekites are still in the land, and history shows them to have been a persistent and aggressive enemy, appearing and reappearing, compelling the Israelites to war with them all the way from Egypt to Canaan. At this point in our church experience it is well for us to discern the enemy's mode of attack.

After an election of readers, as faithful students and workers in Christian Science we have a victory to gain over the Amalekites of personal sense. The enemy can be recognized by its constant effort to direct our thought to the personality of the readers, their manner of reading, pronunciation, appearance, etc. It comes in open or silent criticism, or in the habit of contrasting them with other readers, in commenting upon any omission or commission of word or phrase, and in the degree that we yield to these aggressive suggestions we lose the benefit of the Lesson-Sermons and fail to uphold the hands of our readers.

It is not likely that Aaron and Hur commented upon Moses' weariness, nor wondered why he could not hold up his own hands unaided until the enemy was overcome. No, "they took a stone, and put it under him, and he sat thereon; and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands,"—sustained them until the victory was won. Our individual responsibility is like that of Aaron and Hur. If we abide in the true consciousness, it is a stone upon which to rest, and by it we shall support the hands of our readers. Thus, too, we take our rightful place in the work for the regeneration of mankind, in the healing of sickness and the casting out of sin, which is being done by the Christian Science organization throughout the entire world. By our faithfulness we are aiding in the victory as did Joshua in guarding against the Amalekites.

It need not be dwelt upon here that to indulge the spirit of criticism robs us of the priceless blessing which should come to us from hearing the words of Truth, and that it may delay the healing of ourselves or of a brother. If we are absorbed in the contemplation of the perfection and beauty of God's law as it is unfolded to us in the hymns, Scriptural reading,and the Lesson-Sermon,there will be no place in our consciousness through which the enemy can enter. We will thus support and sustain those whom we have chosen, and if at the end of our first year's experience we have measured up to the stature of Aaron and Hur, we shall find that conformity to the high standard set for us will so illuminate our understanding and strengthen our love for God and for our brother man that the years to follow will be brightened by the light of Love all the way, and every stranger within our gates will catch some glimpse of that "light that never was on sea or land,"—the light of Truth that comes from above and dwells in the hearts and lives of men.

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