Gloria, a young Christian Scientist, was invited to a Halloween masquerade party and was happily looking forward to an evening of fun. A parade of the masqueraders was to precede the party.

There were goblins, ghosts, pirates, and other mysterious characters in the "masquerade march." The neighborhood resounded with the laughter and hilarity of the paraders, and all present, including interested spectators, were enjoying the fun. Suddenly a latecomer, a silent, masked figure, joined the parade—and for a moment the merriment and laughter of the crowd were silenced. The ghostlike figure wore the strangest mask that any of them had ever seen—a grotesque, fantastic "face" —and the weird form moved silently along, so there was no voice to reveal its identity. Gloria, who had always loved Halloween and other masquerade parties, was frightened at first and shrank from the white-clad, masked figure. Suddenly she hurried away to join some of the familiar "goblins" and other amusing, though mysterious, masqueraders.

Later the hilarity of the merrymakers at the party reached its height when it was time to unmask. But the biggest surprise of all came when the silent, mysterious "stranger" removed the fantastic mask. A mass of golden curls tumbled down, laughing blue eyes melted all youthful fears, and a sweet, familiar voice gleefully greeted her bewildered friends. Carol, whose happy smile and loving way had endeared her to all her friends, was beaming with joy and happily proving that she was not the weird "ghost" that she had appeared to be, but was their own good friend. Her disguise had been complete. Later she said to her chum, "Gloria, how could you ever have been afraid of me—when I'm your friend?" When Gloria saw the unreality of that strange, weird mask, and realized that underneath it was the smiling face of her dearest friend, she resolved that she would never be afraid again.

A few weeks after the Halloween party Gloria awakened one morning feeling very ill. She seemed to have a sore throat and also a fever, so she stayed in bed. Her mother read the Lesson-Sermon for that week to her, and lovingly and faithfully worked to realize and prove the presence and power of God, divine Love, and the unreality of this illness. As she prayed to be guided rightly and to know the unreality of anything unlike God, good, she recalled the experience that Gloria had told her about the Halloween party.

"Dear." her mother reminded her, "there is no more reality to this than there was to Carol's Halloween mask that seemed to frighten you when you first saw it. It appeared, at first, to be something real—something to be afraid of—but all the time Carol's smiling face was underneath that strange mask, and she was only pretending and playing a game. You remember when the mask was removed from Carol's face there was nothing to be afraid of because the mask was not a real face. It was only a 'false face." And so, by knowing right now that in the very place where error seems to be there is only the expression of good, we can remove the 'mask' of fear and illness, and prove that they are not real. We can demonstrate the presence and power of Love. Mrs. Eddy says in the book. 'That evil or matter has neither intelligence nor power, is the doctrine of absolute Christian Science, and this is the great truth which strips all disguise from error'(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 454).

"It is Love, divine Love, that heals, dear," Gloria's mother continued. "so when we constantly entertain loving thoughts, those that express God's qualities, we bring good into our experience as surely as morning follows the night. Let us be glad that we have Christian Science, which removes the 'mask' of illness, fear, and all error and reveals in their place health, harmony, and happiness. In that way we prove the reality of God, good, and His perfect creation, man. God is Mind, and man is idea, a pure, perfect expression of perfect Mind."

The next morning Gloria awakened healed. Happy, she went to school as usual. Another "mask" had been removed, and in its place were health and harmony—another proof that the unreal is but a counterfeit of the real and the true, and that "therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise" (ibid., p. 472). As Paul wrote in one of his letters, "God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind."

In the years that followed, this experience stood out as a guiding light in Gloria's memory. Many times the thought of the Halloween mask has helped her to see through the disguises and false pictures suggested by error and to see the reality of God's perfect creation and His perfect plan for His children. Successful and happy in her chosen career, she has never ceased to be grateful for the lesson she learned in stripping the "disguise" from error with the clear light of Christian Science.