Article April 11, 1914 Issue

Testing Time

KATHARINE B. JUDSON, M.A.

Human life brings a series of tests. Consciously or unconsciously, whether we like it or not, each one of us is constantly being "tried out." The tiny toddler is urged by encouraging words to test his skill in a few unsteady steps, while through childhood and student days there is the test of every-day recitations and examinations. In more mature life, even when apparently free from supervision, every hour's work is the test of character and purpose. Character and purpose supply the deepest and highest disclosures of human life.

To every one there come times when the testing is severe, when difficulties of every sort come in a flood. Troubles which would be sufficient strain if they came separately, double in gravity, as we think, when several come at the same time, and each fresh element of discord complicates the others. These are the testing times of which Paul spoke, when he said, "Every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is." So common is this experience, that it has given rise to these well-known sayings: "It never rains but it pours," and "Troubles never come singly."

Every sincere Christian Scientist may have the experience, therefore, of having to meet and overcome many evils, financial, physical, and mental, which pour down upon him from every quarter. And to those who meet this high tide of difficulties in a scientific way, there is deep meaning in the story of the flood, that "the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters."

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