Editorial March 25, 1916 Issue

"If ye abide in me"

John B. Willis

They had been very near friends in the long ago, and it was most natural that after so revolutionary an experience the heart of the woman was moved to write her one-time spiritual mentor of the new glad day which had dawned for her. The little ivy-clad church where they once worshiped together centered her thought on many a heart to heart talk with him of the things of the Spirit, and she could but feel how glad he would be to learn that through Christian Science she had found escape from the agonies of pain and had gained a new and inspiring vision of spiritual truth and a joy of heart she had never known before.

Glowingly yet simply the story was written and winged with loving-kindness for its flight across the sea. Then after some days there came upon her a sense of heaviness and discomfort which she was puzzled to account for, and which maintained its assertion, though she was conscious of no dereliction of duty or disloyalty to Truth. Later she reminded herself that the experience would conduce to increased thoughtfulness of the fact that, as St. Paul says, "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world."

Meantime her story had been read by her friend, not with the sympathetic interest which she had anticipated, but with the grief and solicitude of one who believed that she had yielded herself to the embrace of a blighting heresy, from the dire perils of which he hoped she might escape! The receipt of the letter in which he thus frankly expressed this conviction and implored her to return to the Christian faith of her fathers, not only overwhelmed her with astonishment but speedily awakened thought as to the possible explanation of her sense of abnormality, and as with glad assurance she laid hold upon the promises of protection and peace found in the ninety-first psalm, the burden was removed and she entered again into the joy of her Lord.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Editorial

From Belief to Understanding