We are naturally attracted to warmth. We gather around the fireplace, huddle around a campfire, and are cheered. We sit close to an old iron stove and enjoy the radiance of a flame we cannot see. We respond to a loving heart. We applaud a fervent speech or sermon. Applaud a sermon? Well, most of us do this inwardly. But I did literally clap my hands once, when I was six. Our family regularly attended Sunday evening vesper services in our Congregational church. The minister reached a fiery climax, and I did what I was impelled to do! He took time to thank me kindly and to say he wished he had more such members of the congregation. (My parents later taught me what was considered proper, but I have often wondered if that minister and others secretly longed for a warmer response to their preaching.)

Six years later we were living near the commuter train station in another town. Down the tracks at the next crossing was a little white building. In the summer, with the windows and doors open, a jubilant church service radiated out into the neighborhood practically uninterrupted during each two-day weekend. I was irresistibly drawn to stand at the open front door. A small sign identified the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God. I was not then enough of a Bible student to realize the Pentecostal implications of the name, or of what was taking place inside. As I stood there, two of their congregation, returning to the service, invited me to "Go right on in, it's free." So I did, and it was "free."

I sat in awe at such uninhibited freedom of expression. They were transported as they sang their praises to God. The sermon was punctuated by cries of approbation and applause. There was no hiding their joy and gratitude for the gospel that was being preached, the gospel they knew so well and that was so much a part of their lives. Their hearts burned within them, and the flames of that fire were almost visible. What an eye-opener for one who had been taught to sit still and be solemnly quiet in church.

If I was unconsciously seeking a church where one could be more expressive in his worship, I was about to find a "rousing" church—one that actively calls for demonstration of the presence of the Holy Spirit through healing in accord with Christ Jesus' teaching and example. What could be more demonstrative than demonstration?

We were about to witness my mother's healing of a painful physical condition that had defied the best efforts of her doctors. As she spent much of her time in bed, she had called for her mother to stay with us and take care of the house and family. But our next-door neighbors were Christian Scientists. Leaving for vacation, they had arranged for us to hold their mail and had invited us to read the religious periodicals, such as this Sentinel, that would come. My parents did, and were led to call a Christian Science practitioner they had known for some time.

My mother's healing was instantaneous and permanent. The ever-present Holy Spirit, or Comforter, had illumined her consciousness with the blessed perception of God as a loving Father-Mother, the divine Principle of all, creating man in the perfect likeness of Himself; a creator who sees all that He has made and pronounces it "very good"; thus there is nothing for Him to be angry about or to punish.

My mother's enthusiasm never flagged from that moment on, and she later became a Christian Science practitioner herself. A remarkable testimony to the power of spiritual healing to change a life! Her first step was to begin attending the Christian Science church services. Her family gratefully and faithfully went with her.

Here we found the sermons preached by an impersonal pastor, two books: the Bible, and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. This pastor needs no applause but brings into each receptive heart the flames of the Holy Ghost, which Mrs. Eddy defines in Science and Health as "divine Science; the development of eternal Life, Truth, and Love" (p. 588). This involves the appearance in human consciousness of the divine qualities, which brings about healing and salvation.

We found, too, a weekly Wednesday evening meeting, where the "sermon" is followed by an open period for the telling of experiences, testimonies of healing, and remarks on Christian Science; where free rein is given to express joy and gratitude, to share inspiration, to find uplift and spiritual understanding, and to radiate the warmth of the inner fire. Not too different from the early Christian meetings described in The Interpreter's Bible commentary: "... the presence of the Spirit was associated with the contagion of deep emotion generated in the Christian meetings. The [Old Testament] promises were read and applied, and fervent prayers were offered.... Hymns were sung, and the mighty acts and consoling words of the Savior were rehearsed. Members encouraged and admonished one another by the recital of their experiences as his disciples." Healings took place at these meetings.

But, you may feel, the Pentecostal experience was for that time only. We could not expect to feel the fervor of that moment in our services today. Such sad thinking is akin to the sorry doctrine that Christ Jesus' healing was for his time only, a doctrine thoroughly discredited by the Christianly scientific revival of Christian healing in the past century. Divinely inspired sermons, read from two divinely inspired books, bring divine Science, the Holy Ghost, into every listening thought. Our church services are a never-ending celebration of man's true being as the image of God, good; the full expression of the perfection, holiness, and glory of divine Love; the very temple of the Holy Ghost. This luminous concept of man, understood and practiced, brings full salvation from sin, sickness, sorrow, and lack and is the reason for our unbounded gratitude and joy. Each weekly Bible Lesson (found in the Christian Science Quarterly) is a joyous individual encounter with the healing power of the Holy Spirit, whether one is studying it, teaching Sunday School pupils from it, or hearing it read. The Word of God kindles anew the flame that radiates out to purify and to heal and to light the way for those who seek salvation.

In Miscellaneous Writings Mrs. Eddy states, "Never was there a more solemn and imperious call than God makes to us all, right here, for fervent devotion and an absolute consecration to the greatest and holiest of all causes" (p. 177). We know where the fire is. It is in our hearts. It is there even if damped to embers by the world's coldness. The "rushing mighty wind" (Acts 2:2) of the Spirit can fan these sparks into an inextinguishable flame fueled by our love, gratitude, joy, consecration, inspiration.

Is the light of that flame hid under a bushel, under layers of diffidence, formality, self-consciousness? Our dear Master urges us to put it on a candlestick: "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). And Paul said, "Quench not the Spirit" (I Thess. 5:19). Let it burn brightly and visibly. When our speech and action are impelled by divine Love, we need not fear that if we give full expression to the Spirit, we will be thought unseemly. The grateful tear, the glow of eloquence, the smile that radiates inner warmth, the healing by the Spirit, graciously disclose the hidden fire. We can take our cue from these words in Hymn 320 of the Christian Science Hymnal: "With growing ardor onward move,/With growing brightness shine."