Article December 14, 1912 Issue

LITTLE TASKS

MAY LANGRISHE.

IT came to be the writer's duty to perform the clerical part of the preparation for a Christian Science lecture. A huge pile of envelopes waiting to be addressed lay before her, and it seemed a tedious task. Just then a mental picture presented itself; it was that of two men who had been instructed to go to the Jewish capital long ago, find a certain room, and there make such preparations as were necessary for keeping that annual festival the passover. Did those simple men when setting forth on their errand guess the spiritual nature of the feast which the Master was about to supply them? If so, what expectant light must have glowed in their faces as they paced the dusty thoroughfare from Bethany to Jerusalem; what a flame of love burned in their hearts at the prospect! The commonplace task with which they had been entrusted must have seemed all too easy and too short. But, whether they knew it or not, they went to prepare the place where the bread of Truth was to be broken for them, and through their simple obedience to a whole hungry world.

The parallel of today was startling. Had not the writer also been desired to help in preparing for such a feast? Had not a room been found, and was not the call being made today to the hungry ones to come and share the feast? With this thought came a glorious sense of joy and privilege. She saw that every notice sent out was the offering to a brother of a cup of cold water in Christ's name, and she saw as never before the meaning of that water. The poised pen was laid aside to amplify, these thoughts by applying them to one who had sought help in Christian Science, but whose claim to it had been temporarily waived that the clerical work on hand might be carried through first.

It was then seen that the water our Leader bids us give comes from the river of life; that God's child needs no other sustenance. It is the calm, clear, refreshing assurance that Spirit is his sustenance, divine Love his support, divine Mind his guide, divine law his safety, divine Truth his healer. This realization illumined also the lesser duty, and showed what a ringing echo of Christ's passover a Christian Science lecture is and how even the humble work of addressing an invitation to it, if it be done in love, is not a task, but rather is it a privilege invested with the glory of divine service.

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