Article June 1, 1935 Issue

Hospitality

EVELYN M. PINNELL

From earliest childhood we are taught that the joy of giving and receiving hospitality has certain duties as well as privileges attached to it. Through the study of Christian Science we learn the true meaning of hospitality, and thereby a deeper understanding is gained of these duties and privileges. When we become church members, our opportunities for giving hospitality increase a hundredfold. We become hosts to all who enter our branch church, and it is our happy privilege to help provide a loving welcome and spiritual food and shelter for our guests. In one of the dedicatory messages to branch churches, Mrs. Eddy writes (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 182), "May the birds of passage rest their weary wings amid the fair foliage of this vine of His husbanding, find shelter from the storm and a covert from the tempest." What greater ideal of hospitality could be given to the members of The Mother Church or of any branch church? In the proportion that each member actively does his part as a host, never allowing the false suggestion to enter his consciousness that his share in providing a loving welcome for his guests is too small to count, will birds of passage "rest their weary wings" and find "shelter from the storm."

No church member is too young in years or experience to contribute to the welfare of his guests, for he can know that nothing "that defileth, ... or maketh a lie" can enter the Church of Christ, Scientist. Thus those who have believed themselves to be lonely or discouraged, chronically or incurably sick, critical or grumbling, may be freed from such bondage. No such beliefs are found in the true "Church," which Mrs. Eddy defines in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 583) in part as "the structure of Truth and Love." No genuine seeker will be regarded as an unwelcome guest, or excluded from our services. The false beliefs, however, which have claimed to belong to him will be left behind, fading into the nothingness from which they came. Burdens will be lifted from all guests in so far as each host adheres steadfastly to the divine fact

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