Article April 23, 1932 Issue

On Enlarging Our Hospitality

MARY E. CONKLIN

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.

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Law and Love
April 23, 1932
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