Article September 8, 1917 Issue

Appreciation of the Lectures

GRACE N. I. CUMMINGS

To one living in a small town the Christian Science lectures are a great blessing, awakening students to more earnest efforts in applying the truth gained in studying our literature. When a lecturer's heart goes out to the audience with so much of the Christ-love that he is impelled to give in closing a special message to each one, how that message is treasured and thought over afterward! At the close of one lecture we were told that we would never again be so much afraid as we were before listening to the words which had been spoken. I for one needed that message, and realized that I was healed of discouragement.

At another lecture the story was told of a poor woman who lived inland, and whose friends decided to take her to the ocean, knowing of her great desire to see it. As she stood on the shore, looking out over the water, she was heard to say, "Thank God, here at last is something of which there is enough." From this time on I began to see that there was enough of many things; and were they not all mine,—the beautiful sky, the mountains, sunrise and sunset, trees, water, air, and more than all else, as the lecturer said, enough of Christian Science? Then there was the story of a man who seemed to be in need yet did not know what he needed. He thought it was material things,—money, coal, potatoes,—until it was at last proven to him that what he was really looking for was happiness, and he saw that he needed spiritual things instead of material.

In still another lecture we were told much of the sacred Scriptures, from Genesis on through Revelation, and the different kinds of literature the Bible contains were also pointed out. This was very instructive, and taught us more reverence and appreciation for that wonderful Book of books. Two other lectures to which I have listened brought to mind this passage from Revelation: "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." These words were, to me at least, descriptive of the lectures. They were as poems set to music, and whenever I read them the rhythm is there just as when I heard them spoken.

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