When Mrs. Eddy instituted the Wednesday evening meeting she, at once, offered a great opportunity to the Christian Science movement, and laid a great responsibility upon it. This Wednesday evening testimony was, in her own words, on page 47 of the Manual, to be "more than a mere rehearsal of blessings, it scales the pinnacle of praise and illustrates the demonstration of Christ, 'who healeth all thy diseases' (Psalm 103:3)."

Now Mrs. Eddy never used words loosely. If her readers wish to discover her real meaning they must remember what she herself wrote, on page 320 of Science and Health, concerning the Bible, "The one important interpretation of Scripture is the spiritual." And from that Mrs. Eddy goes on to explain a most important passage to any person taking part in a Wednesday evening meeting, and that is the saying of Job, "In my flesh shall I see God." Here, indeed, is the very accent of praise, if praise is metaphysically understood; for praise is no mere singing of psalms, it is psalm singing translated into action. The sick man does not see God in flesh. Job, sitting on the refuse heaps before the city gate, stricken with boils, was very far from realizing the truth of being. Job, healed and in his right mind, had come to understand the unreality of the flesh to the extent that he could at least say, in contrast of Spirit with the flesh: "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Here was his first step toward that understanding of spiritual harmony which, in the mouth of Paul, burst into praise, as he wrote to the Corinthians, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."

Every man, then, who would understand the Manual must come back to its spiritual meaning. If on a Wednesday evening he would scale "the pinnacle of praise," he must learn that praise is not emotional speaking, that it is no mere eloquence of words, but knowledge which has been translated into action through an understanding of Principle; then the tongue may falter, and the words may halt, but, none the less, as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 354 of Science and Health: "Consistency is seen in example more than in precept. Inconsistency is shown by words without deeds, which are like clouds without rain. If our words fail to express our deeds, God will redeem that weakness, and out of the mouth of babes He will perfect praise. The night of materiality is far spent, and with the dawn Truth will waken men spiritually to hear and to speak the new tongue."

The individual, then, scales the pinnacle of praise not through eloquence or much speaking, but in the proportion of his demonstration. Then a man's real psalm is his life, and that psalm echoes from the pinnacle exactly as the night of materiality is left behind and the dawn of spirituality broadens into eternal day. No man can praise Principle whilst believing in the reality of sin, and the only way in which to express disbelief in sin is the struggle to cease sinning. This struggle, however, if it is to be undertaken with any hope of success, must be undertaken scientifically. To undertake to attempt the destruction of something which is imagined to be real, matter and sin, is simply to start kicking against the pricks. Consequently, a scientific understanding of the unreality of matter and sin must be, in some measure, attained before the destruction of an atom of false belief in them can be achieved. Thus it is that Mrs. Eddy writes, of Science, on page 558 of Science and Health, "When understood, it is Truth's prism and praise." This is easily realized, for what the Greek text of the New Testament calls a scientific knowledge of God, of Truth, is the only means by which the infinite love and power of Truth can be made understandingly manifest to the world.

A Wednesday evening testimony meeting is, then, a sacred charge to every Christian Scientist who is present. Things are thoughts, thoughts of Truth or thoughts of evil, and what the congregation is thinking is its contribution to the struggle of good with evil in the coming week. The speakers are simply the voice of the meeting, and their words, scientific or confused, fearless or undecided, are the echo, ringing true or false, individually, of their own lives and demonstration, or, in the aggregate, of those of the congregation. Here obviously is the responsibility of the individual member, and so of the entire membership of every church for its Wednesday meetings. If the understanding of Truth were powerful enough in them, it would go beyond the telling of healing in the past, and encompass healing in the present. But to accomplish this the congregation must have been fasting from evil thinking during the days and weeks before, and praying—desiring—nothing that is not of God, good. Evil thoughts cannot be brought to the church door, and then left outside, as the Muhammadan leaves his dusty slippers outside the mosque. A man's thoughts are himself, and they are born either of Spirit or of the flesh, but they never mingle. The stream of the one is clear and rapid, that of the other languid and turbid: the one comes down from the pinnacles of praise and rolls out into the ocean of eternal harmony, the other seems to start out of the vacuity of nothingness, and to disappear into nothingness as it flows.

It is just like that with the Wednesday evening testimonies. They are of Principle or they are nothing; they are God's thoughts, the angels of His presence, or they are a human voice—that and nothing more. The ear attuned to Truth may distinguish easily the false from the true, but criticism of the false is of little avail. The responsibility for the meeting is individual, and can no more be avoided than the responsibility for healing the sick. It is easy to point out the deficiencies of your neighbors, but that will not help you to demonstrate the power of Truth yourself. Always the question comes back to your own life, and to nowhere else: "Am I living," as Mrs. Eddy asks, on page 496 of Science and Health, "the life that approaches the supreme good? Am I demonstrating the healing power of Truth and Love?" If the answer is Yes, then the floods may rise and the winds roar but there shall no evil come near thy dwelling on the rock. If it is No, then whether the foundations of the dwelling be dreamy good intentions or downright malice, they are sunk alike in the sands, and will be washed away.

In the parable of Dives and Lazarus, the Greek text explains that after he had passed away, Dives found himself not in hell in torment, but in Hades on the touchstone. He was enjoying, in other words, on another plane of existence, the horror of distinguishing between the gold he had rejected and the dross he had clung to. Any man, who has the courage and the wisdom, can apply his own experience to the touchstone to-day, if he will ask himself, and answer, Mrs. Eddy's two questions. Frederick Dixon.