Our dear Leader, Mary Baker Eddy...

Robert W. Beardslee

Our dear Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, has given great encouragement to the businessman or businesswoman confronted daily with complex problems to solve. She states (Science and Health, p.128): "The term Science, properly understood, refers only to the laws of God and to His government of the universe, inclusive of man. From this it follows that business men and cultured scholars have found that Christian Science enhances their endurance and mental powers, enlarges their perception of character, gives them acuteness and comprehensiveness and an ability to exceed their ordinary capacity."

I have proved her statement true, and this proof has become for me a staff upon which to lean. I am happy to share this experience of increased ability through an absolute reliance upon God.

As an engineer, I presented a plan of operation at a public hearing before a governmental commission. The attorneys for the company concerned opposed this plan because it was a different one from that which their company was following. Five or six attorneys for various cities opposed it because of political considerations, It looked as if I was standing alone as the only one in favor of the plan.

I earnestly believed that the motive behind the plan was good and that it would benefit a great majority of the people. I asked a Christian Science practitioner to help me to see and to do what was most nearly right in presenting this plan. God's words to Moses in a time of difficulty were pointed out to me, "Now therefore go, and I will be with thy mouth, and teach thee what thou shalt say" (Ex. 4:12). I held to this promise for many weeks while preparing to present the plan.

As I approached the witness stand for cross-examination, the thought came to me, "Since there is but one Mind, God, the Mind that inspires every proper question is the same Mind that will impel the answers to them." This gave me a sense of calmness.

The cross-examination lasted almost six hours, as an effort was made to tear down and discredit the plan. Afterward, while reading the transcript of what had been said at the hearing, I was almost amazed to see that time after time I had given the correct answers to questions to which I previously had not known the answers. In addition, many times the answers were phrased in such a way as to stop additional questions along that line.

Through a radical and complete reliance upon divine Mind, God, I had proved true the words of Balaam, recorded in the Bible, "Have I now any power at all to say any thing? the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak" (Num. 22: 38).

For many days afterward I prayed, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10), knowing that I wanted only God's will to be done, no matter which plan was adopted. I had also learned in Christian Science that God's plan cannot be reversed by any suggestion of evil. Weeks later at the final hearing, most of the cities withdrew their opposition, and the company was reconciled to the plan which is now in successful operation.

This is but one of many opportunities I have had to prove that Christian Science is indeed a practical Science which every businessman and businesswoman can understand and use. I am sincerely grateful for class instruction, which is helping me to overcome mortal thinking, for membership in The Mother Church and in a branch church, and for the opportunity of working with all those who are laboring to bless mankind through an understanding of God and of man's true relationship to Him as revealed in Christian Science. —Robert W. Beardslee, San Francisco, California.

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