Liberation

LIDA S. STONE

A very helpful article in one of our periodicals struck a chord of feeling, bringing sweet (one definition of sweet is melodious) renewal of my own experience when our Leader gave us the mid-week testimony meetings. As far back as I can remember I was conscious of an extreme condition of timidity, a painful reluctance to advance without looking to another to supply the initiative. Brought up in a religious belief which observed its collected prayers, rites, and ceremonials with awe and regarded a departure from them as an impossibility, I myself became less and less able to act with the freedom which I admired in others.

In the years of faithful adherence to this chilling belief I was always ill, with no hope beyond the fears and sufferings of an invalid, until Christian Science shone upon my weary self and chased the shadows away. My emergence from continual haunting fear into confidence, courage, and strength was the natural result of my changed concept of God, and it led me naturally out of the old church with no feeling but that of peace and joy,—joy that at last I had a God who would answer all the puzzling questions which my "spiritual advisers," earnest and sincere as they were, always dismissed by saying, "That is a mystery you cannot know now."

In the invalid period to which I refer there was an exaggerated fear of people, so it need hardly be said that I could not have addressed a number of people, much less could I have given an experience such as is heard in our Wednesday evening meetings. Besides this, my ritualistic education admitted of no such "irregular" proceeding. The many blessings which the healing Christ was daily bringing to me filled my thought with songs of gratitude and a desire to follow obediently in the way our beloved Leader indicated. One of the early opportunities to prove my sincerity came when our Leader gave to the field the testimony meetings with this inspired and inspiring message: "Make broader your bounds for blessing the people. ... Learn to forget what you should not remember, viz., self, and live for the good you do. Be meek; let your mottoes for these meetings be, Who shall be least, and servant; and 'Little children, love one another'" (Journal, Vol. XIII, p. 41).

Blessed words! Gratitude first; then personal sense, as I realized that obedience to this call was for me as much as if I were the only Scientist on earth. If one has an enemy to face it is never wise to delay the action which will defeat it, for the suggestions of personal belief will weaken endeavor until excuses for not acting in obedience to Principle seem real excuses. On page 341 of "Miscellaneous Writings" we have invaluable instruction on the "evil of inaction and delay." In my experience the gentle voice of Love asked, "Do you really want to help broaden the bounds for blessing the people?" and roused my sense to a willing response. Then came the question, "Are you afraid to follow the leading of her whom God has chosen to give the message of His love? Does she ever lead toward self or into harm?" and there was only one answer to both these questions. Again, as if to test thoroughly my sincerity, came the further query, "Do you wish to be deprived of the blessing which obedience always brings?" this followed by "Will you do your part?" which brought the questioning to a complete finish.

When the practical application came, in rising to testify to the healing truth, I was ready, though to be sure for a time the fiercely beating heart and dry throat would have tied my tongue and held me to my seat if I had accepted their testimony. The value of every such experience lies in the conquering of that so-called self whose complexities of fears and sufferings and dangers have seemed so real that they appear inevitable and all enfolding. When we learn in the actual conquering of these falsities that they do not hold us, we know that it is the law of Mind which has annulled the belief of a selfhood apart from good.

It is possible that one might freely acknowledge Mrs. Eddy to be the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, and yet fail to appreciate that this includes the discovery of all the ways and means whereby Science is unfolded and established in human consciousness, until, as the apostle Paul says, "we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." A full estimate, so far as we are able to make it, of what it cost our beloved Leader to point out the way, will make us indeed eager to search for and obey individually, no matter how much of self must be abnegated, the commands which will make us Christian Scientists in deed and in truth. The answer of our Leader to a student who emphasized the above to her was, "It takes hold of foundations and touches the need of this hour." We ought to set a close watch lest the enemy of spiritual advancement dull the thought and cause us to excuse ourselves from obeying with joyful willingness that which in blessing one blesses all.

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