Article June 24, 1922 Issue

"The stranger that is within thy gates"

MINNY M. H. AYERS

In Deuteronomy we read: "He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the stranger, in giving him food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt." Here we are definitely told to consider the needs of the stranger in our midst, just as God considered those strangers in Egypt whom in patient love He led forth from bondage into the promised land. And is not His truth to-day again leading the "strangers on a barren shore" (Poems, p. 14), as our Leader so graphically describes mankind, out of the bondage of materiality into the glorious freedom of the sons of God, where, as Paul writes, "Ye are no more strangers ... but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God"? Until the stranger—the beginner in Christian Science, the newcomer to our church services—learns of this spiritual household, where all are brethren, can we, who understand something of this truth, make it easier for him? Surely we can show towards him something of what we have learned through knowing God as our Father-Mother, by taking a brotherly or sisterly interest in him, perhaps at the close of our services.

Some years ago a Christian Scientist was forced to leave her home and the church which had been a haven of comfort to her ever since she had turned to Christian Science, and in which she had worked for many years. It was necessary for her to go into a distant town, where there was no Christian Science church, and into a home where there was, seemingly, a sad lack of love. Here she was indeed as "a stranger in a strange land;" but she knew that this testing time could only bring forth a greater unfoldment of good. For, does not our beloved Leader tell us in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 149), "Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee"?

The Scientist soon sought out the nearest Christian Science church in an adjoining town; and the anticipation of attending the Sunday service greatly helped to brighten the problem-filled days. Then came Sunday; and as she was enjoying the service in the little church, she realized that she was not experiencing any sense of longing for her home church. She felt the presence of divine Love; and so, among this little band of workers, she was at home.

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