Article January 17, 1942 Issue

The Christian Science Reading Room

MARGUERITE SCOTT TILL

Ask God to give thee skill
In comfort's art:
That thou may'st consecrated be
And set apart
Unto a life of sympathy.
For heavy is the weight of ill
In every heart;
And comforters are needed much
Of Christlike touch.

These inspiring lines of A. E. Hamilton, quoted by Mary Baker Eddy in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 95), are applicable to the work of librarians in the Christian Science Reading Rooms. Here, in these rooms where the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, can be studied, everyone may enjoy the privilege of learning how to prove for himself that all things can be accomplished through fervent, consecrated, affirmative prayer. Here, where arguments of every name and nature present themselves almost continuously, the alert custodian of the Scriptures and our Leader's writings persistently looks away from the false presentations of sickness or sin, unhappiness or burden, and joyously, expectantly, holds to the true understanding of man, God's express image, perfect, whole, free. This clear vision of the truth of being often brings immediate comfort and hope to those who may have succumbed to a lifelong habit of accepting evil, illness, and death as inevitable. In these sacred havens, which may truly be likened to "green isles of refreshment"—to use a phrase of Mrs. Eddy's (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 153)—countless numbers of people in every walk of life are joyously discovering that there is no problem too difficult for solution. There is no barrier of sin; no poverty or illness accepted as real and powerful, that can stop them from learning, through their faithful study of our textbook, that divine Science is Science which opens a door to vistas of happiness and freedom hitherto undreamed of and unknown.

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