Our Daily Bread

HELEN WARD BANKS

A little more than three hundred years ago America was a wilderness. Then brave men and women crossed the ocean and, amid many hardships, changed forests into farms and peaceful communities. As we who have followed them, eat each morning a breakfast quickly and easily procurable, how many of us spare a thought to the pioneers who founded the nation? And yet, except for their labors we might not be enjoying the blessings which now come to us easily each day.

All over the world there comes to Christian Scientists the daily bread that meets their spiritual needs. The periodicals arrive at their appointed times, and each day there is provided for us the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly, presenting truths that give us strength with which to meet the cares and duties of the day. Once there was only one Christian Scientist in the world, Mary Baker Eddy, a lone pioneer, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Through her courage and devotion the truth was passed to others, and some of them worked with her. And the work of those appointed to prepare the Lesson-Sermons places before us daily our spiritual meal. Do we always appreciate this and let the cleansing stream of gratitude run through our thought toward those who have served and are serving us; or do we sometimes think of our morning reading as a duty to be got through quickly, so that we may hasten on to our daily work?

There was a woman who had so many morning duties in starting a large family on their several ways each day that she thought there was no time for her to read the Lesson-Sermon in the morning. After some weeks of hurry and confusion she changed her thought and made time for this study in the early hours; and she found that this early setting of her mental house to rights so fortified her that she had not the old worry and confusion to overcome later. Study of the Lesson was no longer regarded as a mere duty, to be wedged in reluctantly between other tasks, but was an inspiring joy.

Some may wonder why each Lesson should be read so many times; but we who read it know that with each reading some fresh truth breaks forth for us. As a consequence, when on Sunday we hear the Lesson-Sermon read from the desk we not only receive it with an understanding that would be impossible except for our daily study, but we also enrich the service by the effort we have made to understand and apply the words of Truth.

Each day we pray, "Give us this day our daily bread," words which our Leader interprets to mean, "Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections" (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 17). We are indeed spiritually fed. Shall we not render our tithe of gratitude to the faithfulness which prepares for us a daily meal that never fails? Before we have exhausted our week's supply we receive another Lesson, fresh and invigorating. Let us accept it, not as another duty, but with the alert joy of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness and are being fed.

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