Hospitality refreshes and heals when it is born of spiritual understanding and brotherly love. It is unselfish and ever considerate; it welcomes, administers, binds up the wounds of affliction, and ministers to the broken spirit. Biblical history reveals the fact that hospitality has been a conspicuous characteristic of the great figures who have forwarded the unfoldment of the understanding of God. It was through his hospitality to three strangers that Abraham was blessed with the realization that he had entertained angels. And in enumerating the essential qualifications of the thorough Christian, Paul said he must be "given to hospitality."

Reared in a religious atmosphere and in a home which fostered hospitality, it was natural that Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, should possess this spiritual quality to a marked degree. While she was nurturing the Cause of Christian Science her expression of hospitality enriched the entire Field, winning and welcoming the stranger, and protecting those "of the household of faith." Our Leader's thoughtfulness toward the Field was gratefully acknowledged on the occasion of the dedication of the Extension of The Mother Church, when of her "hospitable love" the retiring President said, "She has desired for years to have her church able to give more adequate reception to those who hunger and thirst after practical righteousness; and we are sure that now the branch churches of The Mother Church will also enlarge their hospitality, so that these seekers everywhere may be satisfied" (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 40).

Although this request to the branch churches to "enlarge their hospitality" was made a number of years ago, its message is still pertinent to the present progress of the Cause of Christian Science. The promise came to Moses, "The Lord thy God shall enlarge thy border;" and there was also the command, "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them." The building of the tabernacle was a step necessary to the Israelites in their progress toward the promised land. And today it is essential that we have churches, which are veritable monuments of healing, unity, and demonstrated good. The world needs the lesson that unity and power are attributes which belong wholly to good, not to evil, the lie. As long as there remains any belief of lack, sin, sickness, and death, there will remain a need for our church homes.

As individual builders in the Church of Christ, Scientist, our consciousness must be hospitable to the the truth, open to the divine revelation of God and His image and likeness, man, as taught by Mary Baker Eddy in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." In this way we become established on the firm foundation, the veritable Rock upon which Jesus said his church should be built. It will then follow that we shall have offerings such as courage, strength, fidelity, wisdom, and abundance to give as substantial building material.

Our hospitality, however, must express more than the erection of church edifices. It is incumbent upon every member, not upon church officers alone, to express the warmth and the cordiality of a host. A friendly greeting, a word of encouragement, the effort to sing the hymns, a testimony of healing, and a heart full of magnanimity and love—these are winsome and attractive to the guest. Our silent prayer in church is a grand opportunity to realize hospitality, for according to the Church Manual (Art. VIII, Sect. 5), "The prayers in Christian Science churches shall be offered for the congregations collectively and exclusively." Our hospitality must also include the children. They must be lovingly welcomed and provided for. This provision takes form in giving them harmonious and adequate Sunday school quarters, and in supplying them with consecrated teachers, whose example encourages the children, in turn, to cultivate and express this quality.

Through the vast activities of The Mother Church we have the opportunity of extending our hospitality to worldwide proportions, in liberally supporting progressive plans for promulgating the truth. Mrs. Eddy appraised the value of the Christian Science organization in these words (Miscellaneous Writings, pp. 113, 114): "The systematized centres of Christian Science are life-giving fountains of truth. Our churches, The Christian Science Journal, and the Christian Science Quarterly, are prolific sources of spiritual power whose intellectual, moral, and spiritual animus is felt throughout the land. Our Publishing Society, and our Sunday Lessons, are of inestimable value to all seekers after Truth."

Branch churches, expressing in their building beauty, comfort, utility, dignity, friendliness, are arising throughout the world because their foundation is an understanding of Truth and their structure is practical demonstration. It is being constantly proved that steady church attendance and consistent church work are the means by which many are being lifted out of the fluctuating material beliefs of time and sense into the unchanging calm of spiritual understanding.

As a home of progress, safety, and guidance, the Church of Christ, Scientist, can be described in these Scriptural words: "For the cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys." Let us work to enlarge our hospitality until this pillar of cloud and fire attracts and guides all true seekers into Christian Science, where Truth is understood and demonstrated.