Article June 10, 1916 Issue

Distribution Work

FREDERICK R. RHODES

Some years ago, when the distribution of literature was first introduced into our city, it fell to the writer's lot to interview the manager of the largest hotel to ask his permission to place some Christian Science literature in the reading-room of that hotel. At first he refused to have any religious papers in the place, but after a few words about the teaching of Christian Science and its practical use in everyday life, he related an incident which had taken place over twenty-five years ago, and which had affected his whole future. He said he was then suffering from an unsightly blemish on the back of his hand which was pronounced incurable, and which seriously threatened to mar his business career as a hotel manager. While on a visit to an aunt, she had noticed this trouble, and asked him, after being told it was incurable, to let her seek divine help for him. He consented, and in a few days the hand was quite healed and the disease has never returned. He was very grateful for this experience, and therefore quite willing to allow our literature to be placed on the table in the writing-room, in order that some one might be led to the healing truth as an indirect result of his own experience of God's goodness.

The distribution work in our churches is of the utmost importance to the Christian Science movement, and the writer has experienced some wonderful yet natural results of this constructive part of our church activities. In Science and Health (p. 291) our Leader says that "universal salvation rests on progression," and church-members should see the necessity of doing their utmost to help this work in every way which lies in their power. Suppose that one is entering upon this work, what should be his mode of procedure?

It is important first of all, in doing our mental work, to know that we are going to give to the recipients of our periodicals an opportunity to learn that God is a present and available help in their every need, and that nothing can hide this fact from them. In the next place we should see that "order is heaven's first law," and so we should endeavor to deliver the literature as regularly as possible, and try to make sure that it is neat and clean. Besides this we should strive to know that it can arouse no opposition, hatred, or blind prejudice, but will be received in the same loving spirit in which it is offered.

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