Article August 21, 1926 Issue

"Love prepareth"

EMMA MARGUERITE WATSON

OUR Leader's spiritual interpretation of the twenty-third psalm, on page 578 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," reads in part, "[Love] prepareth a table before me." Jesus of Nazareth, the most perfect host of all the ages, has shown us how Love prepares its table. Thirty years of unparalleled preparation preceded the feasts that he provided for his disciples and for the hungering multitudes. A life of devotion to spiritual thinking prepared our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, for her great gift to mankind—Christian Science.

One of the most potent means of dispensing this spiritual gift of Christian Science to a hungering world is the Wednesday evening testimony meetings in Christian Science churches. Here the people gather as they did in Jesus' time—the tired, the hungry, the sick, the world-weary, the sinworn. More than for any other purpose, this Wednesday evening feast is designed to feed such as these, who "hunger and thirst after righteousness;" and the Church Manual(p. 122) definitely provides for the giving of this feast, at which the blessings that have come to us may be shared with others.

To one Christian Scientist there came a deep longing to comply with this privilege, with the hope of helping to lift the burden from some struggling heart. Healings multiplied, blessings increased, but weeks lapsed into months with the silence unbroken and the blessings untold. An earnest introspection brought to light an erroneous belief that all testimonies, to be of value to the listener, should be wholly extemporaneous, and that the impelling force of gratitude alone should bring the Scientist to his feet and give him, at that moment, the proper words for a testimony. Observation soon showed that not all Christian Scientists seem gifted, at their present stage of progress, to speak extemporaneously before an audience. Yet the rule in the Manual remained to be obeyed, and the student's desire to voice gratitude persisted. Then the answer came, "[Love] prepareth;" and it was realized that it does lie within the ability of every Christian Scientist to prepare his part of the Wednesday evening meeting, just as the Reader, the organist, the ushers, and the officers of the church lovingly, prayerfully, prepare their part. This unfoldment and subsequent preparation brought freedom to this Christian Scientist with regard to the giving of testimonies.

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