Article November 9, 1912 Issue

TRUE TEMPLES

H. G. MARCARIAN.

An experience which the writer had some time ago yielded a great lesson, and has encouraged him to study Christian Science more and more, in order to be worthy to be known as a Christian Scientist. Early in the morning of a bright day, in company with several newspaper reporters and photographers, I was sailing down Boston harbor, and during our conversation with the captain of the revenue cutter which bore us, he asked me what paper I represented. I told him that I was the photographer for The Christian Science Monitor. He then asked me if the Monitor was really self-supporting. I said to him that if the Monitor did not support itself, it would not be in existence. "Besides this," I added, "the Monitor is not only existing, but is also increasing its circulation every day."

My interviewer thought that every Christian Scientist would naturally deem it his duty to support the Monitor as a valued possession, and therefore would subscribe to it. Then he added: "I really admire your people, and I must tell you why. I have traveled all over the country and have seen most parts of the world, but have never seen another people who stand by their religion as do the adherents of Christian Science." He added that he was especially impressed, while in a very small town of the middle West, when told that all the religious bodies there (and he named five or six of them) were struggling to keep their congregations together, and also to meet their financial obligations; and the worst of it all was that every church edifice in the town was burdened by heavy mortgages. "But," he went on, "only a few years ago there came a Christian Science family and settled down, and within a very short time the interest in Christian Science grew so rapidly that its adherents have recently built a beautiful church of their own, and that without a cent of mortgage on it." He then told me that all the Christian Scientists he had ever met were sincere, upright, honest, and happy people.

From that time on I have been striving more than ever to understand the Principle of Christian Science, and by constant study of the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's commentary thereon, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," I am realizing that Christian Scientists are indeed happy and contented, not because they are able to erect beautiful churches, but because they are blessed in being able to assist their fellow men, in time of trouble and distress, by leading them into the understanding of divine Life, Truth, and Love. If, by so doing, they succeed in bringing happiness and joy into the lives of others, they glorify God and rejoice. They can but realize, also, how circumsepectly they ought to live, in view of the splendor of the ideal for which they stand and the legitimate expectation of the world that they will practise what they preach.

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