I have always been encouraged by my first experience...

Alan A. Doble

I have always been encouraged by my first experience of God's guidance. At that time, I was unaware of Christian Science, but wanted to understand Jesus' teaching. I knew that there could be only one correct interpretation, although there were many denominations, all having different concepts of his teaching. Little did I realize that Jesus' statement, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled," could be of practical value today, and that such desire is active prayer.

My business took me out of London to the North of England, where I constantly came in touch with Christian Scientists. In my ignorance I scorned their religion, even after I had scanned the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. However, a year afterwards, I wished to read the book again. To my surprise and joy I could, in a measure, understand it.

Looking back on that experience, I have often been encouraged, and when the way has seemed dark, and occasionally hopeless, I have been grateful to know that the true desire after righteousness would be blessed again, as it was in the earlier experience.

In 1931, an old family business was suddenly swept away, leaving me with many obligations, and nothing left in the bank with which to meet them. By understanding, in a small degree, that the only business in which man can be engaged is God's business, most of the employees and I were able to take up fresh work immediately, either in London or elsewhere, without being out of work for even a day. That was at the peak of unemployment in this country.

Christian Science has brought me many other blessings, replacing sickness with a better sense of health, and exchanging the sense of having to struggle alone in the world with confident dependence on God for my every thought.

Above all, I am grateful for the love of God, which is becoming more widely known through Christian Science, and which blesses me far more than I even realize. I am beginning to understand that Love is ever giving "beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness."

Alan A. Doble, Beckenham, Kent, England.

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September 23, 1939

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