Article June 7, 1919 Issue

Our Lesson-Sermons

MAUDE A. MAY

The inestimable value of our Lesson-Sermons was impressed upon the writer more clearly than ever at the time of an epidemic, when, in accordance with an interpretation given to a state law, all public places including churches were closed. With the dawning of a Sunday morning came the disappointing thought that we could not go to church; but immediately came the joyous realization that we could study our Lesson-Sermon; that although our churches might be closed we could not be robbed of the truth as given to us therein. True gratitude was felt and expressed for our Leader's work and her great wisdom in giving to the Christian Science churches throughout the world the Bible and the Christian Science textbook as our "preachers." The writer's thought became filled with the realization of the privileges and joys which were hers as a student of Christian Science, compared with the distress of many around her, those held in bondage by their fear of impending evil.

These words on page 116 of "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" by Mrs. Eddy were recalled and studied: "At a time of contagious disease, Christian Scientists endeavor to rise in consciousness to the true sense of the omnipotence of Life, Truth, and Love, and this great fact in Christian Science realized will stop a contagion." Here was admonition and a promise, our duty to ourselves and to all mankind defined. How grateful she felt that she was able to realize in some degree the truth of this statement, and how safe she felt in God's protecting care. What if all the other people in the town did believe they had to suffer from this so-called disease, she did not have to believe it! A lie repeated ten thousand times is still a lie; it can never be the truth. And have we not the promises in that wonderful ninety-first psalm: "A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.... Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling"?

After some time spent in trying to un-see the discordant conditions and to know the unreality of all mortal belief, the Lesson-Sermon was studied diligently and prayerfully. The subject was "Reality," and so clearly was the truth of being brought out that the student's consciousness was flooded with thoughts of love and health and peace not only for herself but for all God's children. It seemed that each reference from the Bible, with its correlative passages from "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," was written and selected to meet the present need. One passage in particular stood out like a beacon light (Science and Health, p. 318): "We must silence this lie of material sense with the truth of spiritual sense. We must cause the error to cease that brought the belief of sin and death and would efface the pure sense of omnipotence." Gratitude was felt for the faithful workers at headquarters, whose duty it is to select and compile the references which make up the Lesson-Sermons. More than once in what appeared to be a time of special need has the Lesson for that week seemed especially planned to meet that need, although of necessity those references had been selected many months before. During those weeks of quarantine each week's Lesson-Sermon was to the student a tower of strength, and thought rose higher and higher as each unfolded its beautiful truths and promises.

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