Two years ago I was in my first year at grammar school. I had to take Latin as a compulsory subject. I was not at all good at it in my first term and hardly got any translation right, and was falling behind the rest of the class. At the end of term I had a bad exam result. After this result came out, I suddenly realized that I had not been recognizing myself as a true reflection of God and therefore had failed to lean on divine intelligence. I corrected this thought, and all through the second and third terms I held on to the truth that God gives man intelligence. My work improved immensely during this time, and at the end-of-year exams I came out second of the whole class with 86 percent.

This conviction that I expressed divine intelligence kept coming back to me whenever I thought I couldn't do anything, and now my teachers think I am very good at all my subjects. I am very grateful indeed for this particular lesson, and for the Christian Science religion, since I have had many other wonderful healings from its teachings.

For instance, when I was about two years old, I became alarmingly ill with a fever, and we had to wait an hour or two for a Christian Science practitioner to come to our home. During this time my mother (holding me in her arms) sang hymns with my sister until the practitioner arrived. They knew, even before he came, that the healing was complete. And so it proved.

And one day, several years ago, I woke up with a sore throat and cough, so that I could hardly speak. My mother kept me away from school.

However, I had been taught at a Christian Science Sunday School to pray scientifically, and so I began right away to say mentally all the statements of truth I could remember. And particularly the first line of one of Mrs. Eddy's poems came to me over and over (Poems, p. 4): "O gentle presence, peace and joy and power." Not unrest, sorrow, and helplessness, which I seemed to be experiencing, but "peace and joy and power"—these were the real and eternal facts. Not a harsh presence but the "gentle presence."

By the afternoon all the unpleasant symptoms had vanished, and I was back at school.

Charles Fox Brighton, Sussex, England

Exams always used to make me feel very unsure of myself, and last year before the exams, I knew exactly what would happen to me if I didn't do some prayerful work.

During the Christmas holidays I read a few Sentinel articles of other teen-agers' experiences with exams. Each of them pointed out that God was controlling every event and that the exams were a time for rejoicing in the fact that God is our intelligence and is present in the exam room supplying us with the answer to every problem. I also read that there are no failures in divine Mind, which made me feel much more confident.

By the time the exam week came round, I had rid myself of fear and nervousness, and though I had to work hard at revision and so on, I never became fearful or got so nervous that I set up a mental block. My results were good, and I passed each exam.

A few years ago my parents bought a small dinghy. It was the first boat we'd ever had, and I always felt slightly nervous about going out in it.

One summer day we decided to go for a trip up a river and spend most of the day out. We had a lovely time, but on the way back our old, worn-out boat engine began to conk out every few minutes. As usual I became fearful and clutched the side of the boat. Anxiously looking ahead, I saw a small bridge with very turbulent water underneath. The current was flowing fast there. I was worried in case the engine should stop while we were under the bridge and we should be tossed against the wall. But then I realized that this was the time to turn to God for protection.

I had just learned from a Christian Science Sunday School teacher that when we pray in Science we do not plead with God to grant us whatever we need; instead, we thank God for all the good already being given to us at that very moment. So I thanked God for all the love He was encircling my family and me with, and for His law, which was the only law operating right at that moment because He is omnipotent. I stopped being concerned with how many miles an engine could go before it broke down. Very quickly my fear left me as I accepted this wonderful and all-governing Truth. At this point my mother looked toward me in case I was needing her, and she was struck by my serene expression. (She told me this later.) And suddenly our engine perked up and we sailed smoothly and quickly under the bridge to the harbor. My father said afterward that he had been amazed that we had arrived without the engine completely breaking down.

A few weeks later we sold this boat, and the men who bought it refused to buy the engine as it was completely burned out.

This is one of several experiences I have had when the power of Truth has proved to be governing me and my situation through prayer in Christian Science.

I am particularly grateful that I am learning to handle and control fear. This is giving me real confidence, and I am no longer afraid of fear.

(Miss) Rachel Fox

Our youngest son was about to enter his senior year in high school. He had been working for a construction company during the summer. On the last day he was using an ax and cut into and chipped his anklebone. He was given first aid on the job, and although the cut was small, he was advised to have stitches. Instead, he drove home. His father, the boy, and I prayed, as we are taught in Christian Science, to know the unreality of an accident. We claimed man's unity, or oneness, with God, declaring that he was always in the Father's loving presence. We denied that evil had power to cause an accident.

Our son continued to progress and in two days went off to football camp for ten days of vigorous training. A week later he called us to come and get him. The vigorous physical activity and constant abuse of the ankle on the football field had brought him to the point where he could not stand on the leg. He said that his pride and his not wanting to talk about it had kept him from asking his coach for a protective shield for the tender spot.

He called his Sunday School teacher and asked him for treatment in Christian Science. The swelling of his leg was alarming. A thought was expressed that the leg would have to drain. Our son discarded this thought. He felt that he could not outline how the healing would come. His teacher pointed out Mrs. Eddy's statement (Science and Health, p. 463), "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive." Only mortal mind was saying something had to drain.

We turned to the Bible for comfort and found it in Proverbs (4:20): "My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings." This simple statement encouraged us to cling to Love's presence, and by morning the swelling was gone and there was no evidence of drainage. We were very grateful, but the healing was not yet complete, as the ankle was stiff and sore.

Each contact with his Sunday School teacher strengthened our son's conviction that he was God's child, complete, whole, active. On the first day of school he was present, completely free, Incidentally, he played in every game that season.

Christian Science has met our every need when honestly applied.

(Mrs.) Helen R. Hampe St. Louis, Missouri

A week before my mother and I went to the mainland two summers ago, I started wondering about what it was like to fly. I hadn't been in a plane for thirteen years, and then when I was only two. I'd heard many stories about getting sick, how weird flying feels (especially during takeoffs), the air pockets and turbulence the planes often face, and fear of crashing.

I had studied Christian Science for a year in Sunday School, and my mother had attended church. I didn't feel we could handle the fear alone, so I went to a practitioner. She understood the problem immediately and proceeded to correct my thought. We worked with the Lord's Prayer with its spiritual interpretation by Mrs. Eddy (Science and Health, pp. 16, 17). One line is,

The practitioner explained that God is everywhere and I could feel His presence when I was in the air as on the ground. She said it might be helpful if, as I was boarding a plane, I would realize, "The Christ goes before me and all is well." She showed me many ways to think of God instead of the fear. I soon found the fear to be unreal anyway. I thought about everything we'd discussed, and I prayed the night before and the morning of our departure.

The flight took five hours, so I had time to think about what was really happening. I went over the Lord's Prayer and paid special attention to the line "For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever" and its correlative, "For God is infinite, all-power, all Life, Truth, Love, over all, and All" (ibid., p. 17).

The thought came to me that mankind governed by divine intelligence, Principle, had devised this mode of transportation and therefore it is controlled and directed under divine law. I had to know that neither altitude nor motion could affect me, and that God really did have complete control over me and everyone else in the plane. The entire flight was perfect, and I felt very happy as we flew through clear, calm skies all the way. For me, flying is now as normal and easy as walking, and I look forward to flying again.

I am deeply grateful for Christ Jesus, who showed the way, and for Mrs. Eddy, who made his teachings so clear and practical.

(Miss) Mimi McClendon Honolulu, Hawaii