Article July 25, 1925 Issue

Daily Safeguards

LOUISE SATTERTHWAITE

In a western American state there was an unpleasant occurrence. It was an automobile accident, but no one was hurt. In one of the cars were four women, all of them students of Christian Science. Later in the day, in talking over the incident, one of them made the remark, "This morning, in the hurry of getting off, I barely had time to do my Manual work." That evening, each of the three women came separately to the one who had made the remark and asked confidentially, "Just what did you mean by 'Manual work'?"

All of these persons were members of The Mother Church, but all of them seemed more or less ignorant of the daily helps and safeguards given to Christian Scientists by their Leader in Sections 1, 4, and 6 of Article VIII of the Manual of The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston, Massachusetts. The importance of these aids had evidently not been comprehenced by them. This recalled to thought a criticism heard some time before. It was said: "You Christian Scientists express gratitude for God's protection, and then go on to tell how you fell down the cellar stairs; how your automobile was smashed up in an accident; how the gas stove exploded and burned off your eyebrows. I like consistency. Where is God's protection in all this? It would seem to me as if He were a careless sort of God. Or perhaps He is only forgetful."

It was seen that divine Mind is never forgetful, but that student of Christian Science are sometimes both careless and forgetful. Sometimes in the material world we behold foolish children running in and out amid street traffic, or venturing on swift, treacherous currents in canoes. They know little of the dangers they are so lightly running into. Heedless of peril, they go on their careless and unwise way, until, perhaps, a slip involves them in danger; then they cry out,—and sometimes they are and sometimes they are not rescued unhurt. Art not those who superficially rest on some assertion that God is the only power, fancying they are using Christian Science, to be likened to the ignorant and foolhardy child who so often gets himself into trouble from which he nearly always has to be rescued by some one wiser and more prudent than he?

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