Dedicated to youth

Our book this month, Living Christian Science: Fourteen Lives by Marcy Babbitt, is notably dedicated to
'youth, whose high and pure concepts of God, Science, and their own being can lead them into the vast ranges of Mind, where all reality, power, and vision exist, and where all lasting achievement takes place--before it is shared with the world.'

I can't think of any other writer who could have written such a dedication.

Ms Babbitt has an article (available to subscribers of jsh-online.com or found in the bound volumes of the Christian Science periodicals in CS Readings Rooms worldwide) which may be of interest to book club readers. Here is a portion of the article, DIVINE DOMINION, NOT PERSONAL DOMINATION, from the December 1957 issue of The Christian Science Journal

...Some years ago a Christian Scientist was confronted with a lawsuit. False accusations were made against him. These he denied in his answer. Throughout the proceedings, he refused to permit his thought to be dominated by suggestions of retaliation, bitterness, and self-righteousness. He knew that his dignity, his defense, and his demonstration rested solely upon the understanding that man, made in God's image and likeness, has dominion over the false concepts of the carnal mind and that no erroneous quality or condition can in reality dominate one's thought or experience.

When the case came to trial, in a most unexpected way and without any human effort on the defendant's part, the false claims were exposed, and the judge decided in his favor. Beyond the Scientist's gratitude for the favorable outcome was the joy of knowing that divine Mind's all-power and all-presence bring freedom from the methods of mortal mind...

The exercise of divine dominion in human relationships is perhaps the greatest of all demonstrations, for it exemplifies man's direct communion with God...

And so, having read the excellent Foreword by Christian Science Monitor Editor (of the day), Erwin Canham, who begins: 'This is a stirring book', and the aforementioned Preface and dedication, it's on to reading about our first of the 14 people interviewed for Ms Babbitt's book, Adele Blok, Christian Science teacher and practitioner from Jakarta, Indonesia.

Julie Swannell