On this program Mrs. Joyce Chandler Parks of Lockeford, California, told of her own experience. The program was as follows:

Speaker: I think everyone would like to learn how to deal with discord in an effective, healing way. Mrs. Joyce Chandler Parks of Lockeford, California, has had an interesting experience along this line.

Just where did it take place, Mrs. Parks?

Mrs. Parks: It was at a large reform school for teen-age boys in California—boys from fifteen to twenty-one. A number of years ago my husband was appointed the school's Christian Science Chaplain, and I was his assistant.

Shortly after beginning this work I overheard some of the boys in my Sunday School class whispering something about the "underground." I didn't think any more about it until later when a large group of very tough-looking boys marched into the room where we held church. They weren't part of the group who regularly attended.

Usually the bins didn't sit in the front, but that morning this group filled all the front rows, just a few feet away from us. You see, my husband and I were conducting the service; so we were both in front of the group. For a moment I was overwhelmed with fear. I had heard of some frightening disturbances that had taken place elsewhere in the school when gangs of big boys had started trouble, and workers had wound up in the hospital. Our services had a reputation for being orderly; so none of the school supervisors or guards were present.

When my husband announced the opening hymn, some of these boys dropped hymnals and made loud noises. There was every indication that trouble was on the way. I was very frightened, but I rose and walked to my place, looking to God for protection.

As I looked at those young faces it seemed as though I was looking at masks—masks of defiance, malicious mischief, fear, cynicism, sensuality. Then the thought came to me: "These things are not part of the real man. God's perfect children alone are present here." Then I began to feel a great sense of compassion for the boys, recognizing that they felt confused, unloved, and perhaps unwanted. With this, the fear began to leave me.

During the Lord's Prayer a few of the boys joined in at first. As it progressed, the noises stopped, and more of them joined in. During the reading of the Christian Science Lesson-Sermon [outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly] there was a little more noise and elbowing. Occasionally a boy would try to get attention, or start something by making a noise, or mumbling, but it became more and more quiet as we went on. And my fear gradually disappeared. It was wonderful to see calmness and love rule out fear.

At the close of the service all the boys filed out in a very quiet and orderly way. And some of the boys of the underground gang, who, we learned later, had come to break up the service that day, returned to our services to learn about Christian Science.

During the four years of our appointment, we never had another challenge like this to meet. And while teaching my Sunday School class, I was often alone with as many as fifteen boys in a closed room, but I was never fearful again. During the time my husband and I were there, many of the boys in our group were healed through prayer. I remember healings of heart trouble, a deformed foot completely straightened, stuttering overcome, and the disappearance of the desire to drink and steal and to be dishonest. We were known as friends of the boys and were always respected and loved by them: I think largely because we never accepted the belief that they were "'bad" boys, but saw through that mask to God's pure and perfect child.

Speaker: There is certainly a useful lesson in that point, Mrs. Parks. Few people face the exact circumstances you did in that reform school, but all of us need to know, as you did, how to overcome discords in human relationships.

Friends, it was the understanding of God and of the real nature of man, created in God's own likeness, that enabled our guest to meet the crisis. Her first step was to look to God for help—God, whom the Bible describes as infinite Love, ever present, always at hand to bring protection in every danger. The recognizing of God's all-power, His presence, goodness, and availability, is always a vital first step in effective prayer.

Now, the next step our guest took is equally important for successful prayer. She has told us she looked beyond the outward appearances, beyond the mask of defiance, malice, resentment. In other words, she understood the great spiritual fact, revealed by Christian Science, that such evil qualities do not actually belong to the real man, the man of God's creating.

Realizing the true nature of man in this way, our guest was able to confront the obstreperous boys with calmness, compassion, love, understanding, instead of with fear and condemnation. When such constructive thoughts and actions are based upon the clear understanding of God and of man made in God's likeness, they inevitably bring harmony and healing into all our affairs—into our homes, our offices, our neighborhoods.

You see, evil comes to us in the guise of persons, but when we understand that God is completely good and made all, it is possible to separate discord from person. When we know God never made inharmony or evil—and really understand this spiritual fact—discord, masquerading as persons, will no longer deceive us.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, makes this significant statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 71): "Evil has no reality. It is neither person, place, nor thing, but is simply a belief, an illusion of material sense." Now this does not mean that it's ever right to ignore lawlessness, evil, or disease. It does mean that when we start with God as the only cause or creative Mind and realize that God is good and good alone, we can recognize evil as nothing and keep it nothing.

Christ Jesus, the beloved Way-shower, separated both sin and sickness from those he healed. You'll remember he said to the woman crippled for many years, "Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity." And when he healed the palsied man, his first words were, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." Jesus never accented evil or disease as any part of God's man, and he healed all who came to him.

It may riot always seem easy to separate evil from person, but Mr. and Mrs. Parks proved that it can be done. All of us can separate such discords as hatred, jealousy, injustice, and the like, from those with whom we come in contact—our children, our relatives, or our business associates—confident that a clear concept of God as the only Mind, and of man as God's idea, or likeness, always eliminates confusion and discord and restores harmony.

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 40 I from the Christian Science Hymnal (Thou whose almighty Word).