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.

It was not a mere coincidence that the subjects for those weeks were, "Reality," "Unreality," and "Are Sin, Disease, and Death Real?" It was evidence of divine Love's care for His own. As another proof that the Bible and the Christian Science textbook contain an antidote for every evil and inharmonious condition and that the truths they elucidate were not alone for ages past but for our time and all time, the writer is reminded of a Wednesday evening meeting in one of the New York churches during the week in which diplomatic relations with Germany were severed. The country was stirred as perhaps it had never been before, and anxiety seemed to be delineated upon every countenance, so filled with fear was the human mind. The writer, with hundreds of others who filled that great auditorium, will never forget the significance of the readings from the Bible and Science and Health as given to that great congregation. Had the words been written that very week for the crisis in which our country found itself, they could not have been more applicable, more full of hope and courage, better selected to dissipate dread and terror and to fill human thought with a calm, clear trust in God.

So closely related were the selections from the two greatest books the world has ever known, and so prophetic were they of the great upheaval of materiality that must take place before "all discord will be swallowed up in spiritual Truth," to use Mrs. Eddy's words on page 96 of Science and Health, that fear was dispelled and those present could but feel that they were indeed being fed with the bread of heaven.

Gratitude is hereby expressed for our inspired Leader, Mrs. Eddy, and for all of her writings; for her self-sacrificing life; her loving, faithful teaching of the truth; and her great wisdom in giving us not only our Lesson-Sermons but all our publications, which are such storehouses of spiritual food. We should never cease to be grateful for all that serves to keep open the channels through which the healing activity of Truth reaches all who look to God for help.