Article March 21, 1925 Issue

Grace before Meat

MABEL S. THOMSON

THE old custom of saying grace before and after meat, which used to be almost universal among English-speaking peoples, has very largely disappeared during the last fifty years, and is now seldom followed except at ceremonial banquets, which are sometimes opened by a brief Benedictus Benedicat (may the Blessed One bless) from the president, or in certain religious houses, where long Latin graces are still in order. And yet, like many another religious custom which has lost its hold on the general thought, this one of saying grace befare meat had its origin in a great truth.

One of the many interesting points in the study of Christian Science is the discovery of the spiritual facts which underlie so many of the forms and ceremonies to which we were accustomed in our childhood, which we never fully understood, and which therefore meant practically nothing to us. Through the light which Christian Science throws not only upon the Scriptures, but upon experience, we find the spiritual facts emerging from a mass of superstition or formality under which they have been buried through the material interpretation of the Scriptures, and we see how our common life has been robbed of much that should beautify and sanctify it.

No student of the Old Testament can fail to be struck by the fact that the Hebrews looked to God for support and guidance in the smallest details of their lives,—where they should go, what they should do, how they should order their goings out and their comings in; and God's dealings with them were just along these lines of common daily experience. The sending of the manna is an illustration of this. It is particularly recorded that the manna was intended for their common use, and not for any special occasion or ceremonial rite. Again, when they could find no water in the desert, Moses was bidden to bring forth water from the rock for their common supply. And the inevitable result of these occurrences must have been to educate the national thought to regard the Almighty literally and actually as the immediate source of their supply, and consistently to acknowledge this.

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