"Yes; and it's like copying some one else's problems and shirking
your own daily work. When the exams come you're not 'in it'; you
just have to 'go way back and sit down,'" and the roguish dimples
played in her cheeks as the slang phrases slipped glibly from her
tongue. "All the same," she continued, "it is a help to have
others about you doing good work. Somehow it inspires you to
hustle for yourself--that is, if you honestly want to be the real
thing and not a sham."
The latter part of February Mrs. Minturn, having been called to
the western part of the State on business, stopped at Hilton on
her way back, to spend the Sabbath and make "my girls" a little
visit.
That visit was like an oasis to Prof. Seabrook, or, as he
afterwards expressed it, "it shone in his memory like a pure,
lustrous pearl set in jet."
Saturday afternoon was spent with Katherine and Jennie, doing a
little needful shopping and visiting some places of interest in
the city. Saturday evening, a party, including the Seabrooks,
Sadie, Miss Reynolds and Dr. Stanley, was made up to go to hear
Madam Melba, who was to sing in "Faust," and a rich treat it
proved for them all.
Sunday morning found them all, except the principal and his wife,
at the service in the hall on Grove Street, and which was now far
too small to comfortably accommodate the people who were flocking
to it; while Sunday evening, at Mrs. Seabrook's invitation, saw
our friends gathered in her spacious parlor to listen to a little
talk on Christian Science from Mrs. Minturn.
"I see you each have your book," she began, glancing around the
circle, "and I think we cannot do better than to look into the
tenets of our faith--you will find them on page 497. There is much
more than at first appears in those few brief paragraphs, and I
hope no one will let a point go by, if it seems perplexing,
without trying to get at the heart of it. Don't fear to interrupt
me with questions, for they will show me your trend of thought."
Then, one by one, she took up the sections, which were freely and
thoughtfully discussed. Prof. Seabrook, however, was the chief
interlocutor of the evening and plied the patient woman with
queries both practical and profound.
She met him logically on every one, and by the time they had come
to the end of the fifth paragraph much of the perplexity had
vanished from the man's face and a look of peace was enthroned in
its place, while not one in the room ever forgot that hour, which
was so fraught with helpfulness and intense interest to them all.
"Mrs. Minturn," he gravely observed, as she paused for a moment,
"when one begins to understand something of what Christian Science
really is, one finds himself suddenly shorn of his former
intellectual arrogance and ecclesiastical intolerance, while he
stands abashed and is amazed that he had never seen these things
before."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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