DELIVERANCE AND GRATITUDE

KATHARINE OVERTON.

For some time I thought that a testimony could have little value for others if given by one who had not been helped out of some serious malady or physical injury, but now it seems to me otherwise, and that at any rate the benefit to the testifier may be sufficient ground for the offering, particularly one who has always had a dislike of seeing her name in print, and perhaps a stronger dislike, though unacknowledged, of having it printed in connection with Christian Science. The reaction was so great after the uprooting of that noxious prejudice that I had a conviction that nothing would satisfy me but to go straightway, never stopping, till I should feel upon my head in blessing and forgiveness the hand which in the stupidity of ignorance I had done my utmost to discredit in its work of uplifting humanity.

But study of the text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, soon got me away from that, and I saw how once and for all time and for all such offenders, when penitent, the voice of divinity had spoken peace in the prayer, "Father, forgive them." To testify is a helpful step without doubt, and the more diffident we are the greater is the help; but out of my own experience I would dare to counsel another who timidly dreads to express his gratitude, "Do not force yourself to do it as a task. Look to your growth, and then wait with patience. Expression will come naturally, like petals pressing from an outgrown calyx." Of a certainty no cause led as Christian Science has been led has need of grudging or fearsome support. The time must come to each one when the stones will seem to cry out for us in thankfulness for such leadership, and when that time comes the voice will come, and it will be lifted up in joy, not fear. We have not realized what was keeping us back; we have perhaps called it by pleasanter names.

One day near dusk, off a lonely shore, a company of friends out in a skiff were caught in a storm that quickly rolled up high breakers, and seeing they would not be able to beach the boat in the cove where camp was established, they rowed into an untried cove where they barely got through the surf in safety, though everybody was drenched. Both rowers, one from each side, plunged into the last breaker before it swept in upon the beach. in order to steady the boat and to keep it from being sucked back in the undertow. We then seemed shut in by an almost perpendicular cliff encircling the small cove, menaced by the tide which would soon be flooding in. At first no trail could be found, but at last a narrow cleft was discovered, filled with the loose earth of the mesa above, and one of our number started laboriously upward, calling upon the rest to follow.

It was a hard climb, and when within a few feet of the top the trail disappeared, we all waited anxiously while the head man groped in the dusk for a foothold. Toward the top the cliff curved outward, overhanging the beach, which was sixty or seventy feet below. Return was out of the question, and it looked as if only prehensile feet could surmount the forbidding cliff. Then the leader called down to us that he had found some shallow notches cut in the face of the rock; these he followed cautiously and once on top was soon outstretched upon the ground, reaching down with a staff to steady and guide the one next below. All got up in safety, but only one, the brave "last man." called out in the dangerous transit, "Blessings on the man that cut these notches."

Only one had voiced the thankfulness, yet all were possibly equally glad to be out of the peril. Again had my old disapproval of the nine ungracious (selfish) lepers to be turned inward in self-condemnation. Comparatively a trivial incident, it serves to picture a sterner scene which may well be etched in the unstable human memory; a crueler cliff in which steps have been cut for our feet by frail hands unused to rough undertakings; the hands of a delicate woman whose every step for years had been safeguarded by loving protection. She left the pleasant valley where love had enfolded her, and single-handed made her way—and our way—up the rugged mountain. There were no friendly voices, alas no! only mocking laughter; yet when the storms of derision and persecution were rudest there was no resentment in the gentle voice, there was not even moaning; there came, rather, from the bleak height, the sound of praise: "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters." And from that desolation of human loneliness came the song:—

I will follow and rejoice
All the rugged way.

O critic! If you needs must find fault, let it be with something besides this "Shepherd Hymn." Call it nursery song if you like, but it is your business to know that every child in the land, and every childlike heart, is coming to love it and will carry it in memory forever; and that, you know, means its immortality. Christian Scientists give thanks, with you, for the great hymns of the masters, but for the inspiration of the church and home, marvel not if they shall cherish for all time a peculiar reverence for this fervent prayer of our Leader (Poems, p. 14):

Shepherd, show me how to go,
O'er the hillside steep.
How to gather, how to sow,—
How to feed Thy sheep.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit