Article June 3, 1939 Issue

The Touch of Angels

MARCIA STEVENS BARBER

"One thing I have greatly desired, and again earnestly request," writes our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, in "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. 127), "namely, that Christian Scientists, here and elsewhere, pray daily for themselves; not verbally, nor on bended knee, but mentally, meekly, and importunately." That the motive for this prayer must be unselfed, the Christian Scientist is progressively certain. Surely Mrs. Eddy did not want us to pray for ourselves in any material sense. What prayer for ourselves is blessed of the Father? Can it be any other than the earnest, humble desire so to reflect the divine nature that we may show forth, in healing, the glory of His presence?

How filled Mrs. Eddy's life was by this pure and humble prayer, we have proof in the healing and saving spirituality of her writings. This is especially clear in her much-loved poem (Poems, p. 14), "Shepherd, show me how to go," written while she was pastor of the Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston. The writer had sung the familiar words of this poem since babyhood, but not until later experience did she realize that the poem is an urgent prayer. A simple experience illumined the words for her, and lent new depth and tenderness to other passages in our Leader's works.

One afternoon at dusk, she started to take her little two-year-old boy to bed, after his rather strenuous playtime. Crying and protesting, he struggled at the foot of the stairs, and for her to carry him up to bed seemed the only solution. Tired and distressed herself, the young mother stood for a moment gazing down with exasperation at her unhappy baby, when suddenly she felt an overwhelming desire to use this opportunity to bless. Instinctively she found herself singing softly, urgently, humbly,

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