Article July 22, 1916 Issue

"Living witnesses"

JESSIE B. RICHMOND

On page 150 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says that if God be with us "the wayside is a sanctuary, and the desert a resting-place peopled with living witnesses of the fact that 'God is Love.' " Among the many privileges that come to a member of a Christian Science church, there is none the writer prizes more than the opportunities afforded of beholding the manifestations of Love as reflected among those who meet there from week to week. In gathering up the fragments of this feast of neighborly kindness and fellowship, one finds a multitude of "living witnesses" crowding upon the thought. On many a Wednesday evening there rises a song of gratitude that through Christian Science some one has learned to know the joy of loving his neighbor as himself. What cannot be told in public is how this is being worked out in practice; yet it is being done, and instances of it can be seen on all sides.

The church of which the writer is a member is situated in a large city, and in connection with the summer vacation there have come to light examples of unselfishness and of a sincere desire to help the neighbor to a holiday, even at the expense of one's own. One lad, a pupil in the Sunday school, visited the mother of a fellow pupil to ask if he might share his seaside holiday with her son, as the first lad was working and could pay for it, while the other had otherwise little chance of getting out of the city. Many have given up their holiday, or else shortened it considerably, to relieve men called to special duties. Some have sacrificed leisure and comfort to be with those who needed their care. Others have looked out for lonely and neglected acquaintances and taken these along with them, thus sharing with them the best they had to give,—their holiday happiness. Others again have offered their homes and gardens to those who could not go very far afield. Brotherly helpfulness has made it a pleasure rather than a task to take up the duties of another when asked. These kindly deeds occur among those who, till they met in church, were strangers to each other.

It is a common thing to hear it said that people get to know one another very readily in a Christian Science church. This may be because the things they have in common are the vital things in their life experience,—the unseen things which are eternal. In this practical way they are learning what Jesus meant when he said that they who did the will of the Father were his mother and sister and brother. Every overcoming of self opens up a new activity of thought and a new desire for service. This speedily leads to recognition of present opportunity for giving to the neighbor according to one's own having, in quiet ways which bring a blessing both to the giver and to the recipient, for Mind, unerring and supreme, is acknowledged as both prompting and executing the act.

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