Article December 23, 1922 Issue

Unselfishness a Protection

MINNIE S. BOWER

The Christian Scientist feels that he cannot start the day aright unless he reads from the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. This may not mean much to other people, but the textbook teaches how to apply the Bible truths to everyday life. At first, one undertaking to practice Christian Science may not express much Godlikeness; but as he continues to study, it gradually becomes so much a part of himself that he unconsciously lives it. Think what it means if even one person in a community lives his life unselfishly and in obedience to God; if one mother governs her children and runs her home with the desire uppermost to help the world by doing her work rightly, even though her life seems small and inconspicuous; or if the child at school or play remembers that, even as a little child, Jesus helped the world by refusing to think wrong thoughts and by always having good thoughts, so that "the grace of God was upon him."

I have studied Christian Science since I was a young girl, and have never ceased to be grateful to my parents for this religion. I have also been taught to find the solution to each problem in the Bible and the textbook, and have been told many times that unselfishness was one of the keynots of Mrs. Eddy's character. I should like to tell how trying to apply what I read helped me in one instance.

One morning, while reading our weekly Lesson-Sermon, I was impressed by this passage from page 99 of Science andHealth: "The calm, strong currents of true spirituality, the manifestations of which are health, purity, and self-immolation, must deepen human experience, until the beliefs of material existence are seen to be a bald imposition, and sin, disease, and death give everlasting place to the scientific demonstration of divine Spirit and to God's spiritual, perfect man." I thought of this all the morning, and prayed to be shown how to express more "self-immolation." That afternoon, while with two other Christian Scientists, without a second's warning such danger arose that it seemed that one at least, if not all three of us, might lose our lives. In that moment each one completely forgot herself; and in the effort to help each other all were saved. This experience has helped me very much; for when I feel that I am able to live but little of the great truth I love so much, I have only to remember how quickly, and how far beyond my fondest hopes, was my prayer of unselfishness answered.

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