Many of us no doubt, as is the case of the writer, have an intense feeling at times to say or write something of our experience in Christian Science, and yet without being aggressively doubtful feel that a statement of our physical and mental demonstrations cannot be narrated positively enough to satisfy our own conscience that our words are entirely free from self-deception; in other words, that we are sure in our own hearts that we believe all we say.

Following this, we naturally have some diffidence in speaking about all the love and beauty we see for ourselves in Christian Science, fearing that our words may savor of preaching without proof of our sincerity.

Despite the above, a few thoughts struggling for utterance may be of help to some others who are attracted to Christian Science and seem unable to find a starting-point.

At a recent Wednesday evening meeting in New York, one of the speakers thanked Christian Science for the enlarged view it gave him of God, and he showed by what system of education he was training his mind to get away from the circumscribed, finite idea which most men have of God. He collected and collated all the names and expressions used in the Bible and Science and Health employed to signify God, then he very graphically showed how they all meant that "God is All in All," and that All, meant God.

This is doing scant justice to his remarks, but it is sufficient for our purpose. In like manner take pages 616, 617, 618 Index,—[God]—in Science and Health and study that. It will be a revelation. (Revelation—an unveiling, an unfolding.)

We all, if we look into Christian Science with an open mind, will grasp the fact that it is logical, consistent in its reasoning, and not at all antagonistic to the thought of our great modern idealistic philosophers.

Mrs. Eddy and thousands of her followers have given proof positive that they are able to heal the sick through prayer. The results are beyond question. The sceptic questions the process. Some say advanced mesmerism, imagination acting on the nerves, change of blood circulation, etc. But, what does this form of explanation amount to? It is only a vague, undemonstrable theory against actual good results. Why not, therefore, be generous minded, and start out with the postulate that Christian Science teachings may be true.

Read the Bible and Science and Health and see what a sense of peace will come to you. Without making any assertions about the reasons for such a change, the writer in his own case can say that he read Science and Health for a whole year and could not see any sense in it, or how it gave a spiritual interpretation to what he considered the rubbish of the Bible; but after that time—to be exact, in August, 1899—he talked with some wise Christian Scientists who somehow or other started him on a fresh line of thought, with an "open mind" for such truth as there might be in Christian Science, and immediately following that, he grew from a thin man of somewhat peevish health and irregular functions, into a stout, healthy, happy man.

To get the spiritual import of the Bible, it must be read with love instead of a carping criticism searching for inconsistencies. It must be recognized that the Scriptures were written by Orientals, of a different method of thought and expression from ours, in a language that has been obsolete for hundreds of years, and that the translations we now read have a context very much colored by the meanings given to them by the translators, who may possibly and probably have very often missed and misstated the turn and inflection conveyed by the original writer. We shall find the Scriptures helpful and consistent if we read the Bible narratives in the same spirit of love that we read a letter from a dear one in a foreign land, in which this one talks familiarly of customs and manners with which we are not personally acquainted. If the letter has become soaking wet and much of the writing blurred and undecipherable, should we try to invent all manner of foolish theories as to our dear one's meaning? On the contrary, we should try to fill in the missing meaning with all the good, kindly thoughts actually written.

The good, kindly thoughts are what Jesus and the prophets have been trying convey; not even the cynical person can attribute worldly vanity or hope of material gain to them. Their words are utterly meaningless from a material standpoint.

Take a few of the sayings of Jesus, for instance: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him;" "It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life;" "That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me."

Now, unless the only real Substance and Mind is Spirit, and unless the physical is unreality,—the inverted or distorted image,—what possible explanation can be made of these and other Scriptural sayings?

In view of the fact that following the attempt to obey the teachings of Christian Science, a very great improvement in the life of the writer is to be observed, and that hundreds of others bear testimony to similar experiences, it certainly seems that Christian Science is worthy of kind and generous investigation, an investigation upon the assumption that it is the truth until proven false.