Christian Science -- Fiction; People with disabilities -- Fiction
"At the ball the Goddards gave for Rosemary just before she sailed, I
was doing a two-step with Noel, and I saw a dandy girl, whose gown
simply reeked of Paris, it was so delicious. She was dancing with a
corking looking man, and, as we stopped near them for me to get a better
look at her clothes, I heard her say, ’Are you going to communion at the
Mother Church?’ and he said, ’I never miss it. It is the treat of my
whole year!’ I looked at Noel and he looked at me.
"’Noel,’ I said, ’Did I hear aright? They weren’t betting on a
horse-race in cipher, were they?’ ’No,’ sez he, giggling, ’they were
not. They are Christian Scientists, and they are now talking about an
incorporeal God.’ ’In a ballroom,’ murmurs I to myself. ’Noel,’ I
said, in a weak voice, ’Take me out and lay me softly under a pump and
bring me to. I am too young to go dotty without any warning.’ But,
instead of that, we joined them and Noel introduced us to each other,
and we finished the two-step talking about how hard it was to change
from our old idea of a God who was so much like a man that we had to
flag Him and shout out our prayers to be sure to get His attention. I
used to feel as if I were on the floor of a convention, trying to catch
the Speaker’s eye.
"But I want to ask you two things that I can’t quite get up my nerve to
ask Mrs. Goddard. What did you do about praying while changing your
idea of a personal, corporeal God to one of spirit? Why, Carolina, I’ve
lost the combination! I feel as though I were praying through a
megaphone out of an open window. My prayers don’t seem to strike
against anything. Will I get over this feeling in time? It is only
fair to state, however, that even this queer hit-or-miss method brings
answers which my most frantic screams for help and my most humble and
dependent clinging to the robe of my personal God never did. So you can
just bet that I’m going to stick to the new method, whether I ever
understand it or not, because it does deliver the goods. Am I right or
wrong? I want to know.
"Now, I did tackle Mrs. Goddard on this point. I feel a perfect wretch
to mention it, but the fact is, I simply cannot endure the name of Mrs.
Eddy! Every time they mention ’Science and Health’ in church, they say,
’By Mary Baker G. Eddy.’ Every time they give out a hymn that she
wrote, they say, ’By Mary Baker G. Eddy.’ And every time they do it, my
blood boils and my face burns and I grab my hymn-book until--well, I
split a pair of gloves nearly every Sunday!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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