Article December 16, 1916 Issue

"Love's recompense"

MAY BARRIS

That inspired sentence, "Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power," is from the pen of Mary Baker Eddy, and may be found on page 192 of the Christian Science text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." It has been the great pleasure of the writer to prove the truth of this statement many times, but one of the sweetest proofs came to her through a little child.

A little fellow of ten sat at the breakfast table one morning and complained bitterly because his salary of ten cents for the coming week was inadequate to cover his many needs. He realized that this amount was not to be added to by either father or mother, for the lesson to be learned in its expenditure was "wisdom" and "economy" (see Church Manual, Art. XXIV, Sect. 5). A sense of limitation does not, however, stay long with one of the Father's little ones, and a few minutes later he came bounding up, with bright eyes, to say good-by before starting to school. Glancing straight into his mother's eyes, the tears he saw there reminded him that mother's heart was heavy with a grief of her own that day. His little face grew sober and thoughtful as he left the house, but he returned radiantly happy a short time afterward and, asking his mother to close her eyes, deposited in her lap a ten cent bunch of sweet peas!

Thought had been held "in line with unselfed love" and had therefore received directly the divine power, for as the mother folded her arms about the boy, realizing that he had given his all to comfort her, her grief rolled away like the unreal thing it was, and she found herself healed! Circumstances had not changed, but viewing them through this reflected love, they lost their power to harm or grieve. How true it is that "a little child shall lead them," lead human sense out of the maze of the unreal into the sunlight of Love's presence! In the clear light of that moment she saw that to attempt material repayment would be to lessen the spiritual joy which was his, and so she left him to his joy, knowing, as our Leader tells us on page 3 of "No and Yes," that she could "trust Love's recompense of love."

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