Article August 18, 1945 Issue

"No loss can occur"

[Of Special Interest to Youth]

TERESE ROSE NAGEL

A Young girl who had been attending the Christian Science Sunday School since her childhood slackened her spiritual efforts and through disappointing experiences was forced to retrace her steps. In her late teens she had made such great progress that she found herself ready to join The Mother Church and a branch church. At that time, an alluring offer presented itself in the free use of riding horses from a stable on a neighboring estate. She was fond of this sport, but in order to avail herself of this opportunity she found that it would be necessary to associate with a smoking and drinking crowd, and to cultivate friendships which would not be conducive to her spiritual growth.

In perplexity she consulted an experienced Christian Scientist, with the following appeal: "I do want you to help me to work this out, but please don't remove the horses." The friend lovingly pointed out to the girl that in Christian Science we do not pray either to retain or to remove material things. It was also explained that since right activity results from the operation of God's law, one could never lose by taking one's stand for Principle. This passage from the Christian Science textbook by Mary Baker Eddy was also carefully pondered (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 1): "Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds."

The student became conscious of the spiritual fact that because God is the Giver of all good, we do not petition Him for material things, nor does He satisfy our whims or human wishes. She was reminded that God is a divinely beneficent Father-Mother, who knows all the needs of His children and supplies them by means of divine ideas, diversified, abundant, and plentiful.

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