Article January 13, 1951 Issue

TAX THE CALAMITY!

SADIE RUBINS

"It's just a greater calamity than I can bear," a young Christian Scientist said as he recounted to a practitioner the discord which he felt had brought his small world toppling around him. "Then tax the calamity—tax it heavily," the practitioner quietly replied. "Our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, makes plain that the tax you raise on calamity opens the gates of heaven. See that you do it."

For many years the young man had proved the availability of the truths taught by Christian Science. Erroneously influenced by associates, he had drifted mesmerically into a state of confusion. Then, accepting the verdict of materia medica, he was soon enmeshed with the symptoms of a so-called incurable disease. Suffering and filled with fear, he had been unable to attend faithfully to his work. When finally he lost his job, the sense of lack and fear of the future brought him to a point of great despair. In the practitioner's office he realized it had taken a calamity, indeed, to bring him to himself and turn him again to his heavenly Father for help.

Leaving the practitioner's office, he went immediately to a nearby Christian Science Reading Room. With the help of a Concordance to the writings of Mrs. Eddy he found the reference which the practitioner had used. It seemed entirely new to him, though he had in times past read the article "The Human Concept," appearing in "Retrospection and Introspection." The paragraph, starting on page 70, reads in part: "The right teacher of Christian Science lives the truth he teaches. Preeminent among men, he virtually stands at the head of all sanitary, civil, moral, and religious reform. Such a post of duty, unpierced by vanity, exalts a mortal beyond human praise, or monuments which weigh dust, and humbles him with the tax it raises on calamity to open the gates of heaven."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

"THE LIGHT OF EVER-PRESENT LOVE"