Article February 17, 1923 Issue

Service

CORINNA SIEDOFF

FEW words in the English language are more commonly used than the word "service." Yet how true it is that, more often than not, it is used without due regard to its meaning. Were its meaning more generally understood, its use would bring a greater sense of inspiration and fellowship and love.

It is clear what the Christian Science idea of service is from a passage which occurs on page 40 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." Mrs. Eddy there says, "It is sad that the phrase divine service has come so generally to mean public worship instead of daily deeds." How much those last two words involve! To be effective, daily deeds of service must be the outcome of a love that springs from the fount of divine Love; for we read in the thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians, "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity [love], it profiteth me nothing."

Now when thought begins to apprehend the meaning of the word "service," it begins to embody it in terms of daily deeds, exemplifying a love that "seeketh not her own;" or, as Mrs. Eddy so fully expresses it in Science and Health (p. 518), "The rich in spirit help the poor in one grand brotherhood, all having the same Principle, or Father; and blessed is that man who seeth his brother's need and supplieth it, seeking his own in another's good."

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