Saved my life – Finding Christian Science in Prison – Robert McVey’s story

Talk given by Robert “Bob” McVey to the Arizona Institutional Committee on 4/16/77

This inspiring story of transformation was given by Robert “Bob” McVey on 4/16/77 to the Arizona Institutional Committee about how he found Christian Science while serving time in prison at Soledad Prison in California and how it saved his life.

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Transcript

Our guest speaker today, Mr. Robert McVey, will share with you this afternoon some interesting situations, both as a recipient and currently as a chaplain in one of the California penal institutions.

Bob has had the blessings from both sides, and he’ll tell you exactly how much each one has meant to him.

Bob has been a very active Christian Scientist since he found it in an institution, and since his release has been involved in many of the activities, all of us have had the privilege of sharing in our churches and home communities.

Bob serves on the board of directors of his branch church. He serves as Sunday school teacher, et cetera. He has had the privilege of working for the last five and a half years as the co-administrator for a Christian Science nursing home accredited by the Department of Care, Fern Lodge in California.

So Bob sharing and caring certainly goes the whole gamut of every type of need.

Bob is a former visitor to the state and as a long ago, one time, snowbird, had a very interesting tourist situation here in the state of Arizona.

He went on a very rapid and scenic tour.

And with that enigmatic introduction, I’d like to introduce to you our guest speaker, Mr. Robert McVey.

I love thy way of freedom, Lord.

I was really grateful that we were able to sing that song, that hymn, at the beginning of today’s meeting.

What I would like to share with you today is how I came into Christian Science.

And to do so, I think it’s important to share just a little of what went on before I came into Christian Science.

I grew up very ignorant and lonely, in trouble without any sense of home life. Without any real parents.

Without any sense of morality or law.

And because this is the way I had started this human life, I was in trouble almost from the beginning.

I ran away from home before I was 10. I was in juvenile hall actually when I was nine years old.

I started stealing cars, using narcotics, stealing a number of times.

I went to the California Youth Authority, it’s a little prison for young offenders, for burglary.

Eventually I got into the heavier narcotics, in the hippie scene, heroin and LSD.

The last time that I had been arrested, I was living in a commune, and when the police broke down the front door, they hauled away three shopping bags full of narcotics.

There were three loaded guns in the house, and I’m just extremely grateful that I am alive and here to share today how I came out of that mess.

But that’s just a little picture of where I came from before Christian Science.

Now, in 1968, I was sent to Soledad State Prison in California.

It’s a maximum security prison, and I was supposed to do about 10 years there.

You see, I’d be getting out next year.

At any rate, before I tell you just what happened there, I’d like to just share my little experience of one time in Arizona.

I was a teenager. I was running away from the police in California. I ran to Kansas, stayed there for a couple of months and got in trouble there and we stole a car and were coming back to California.

And when we got to the New Mexico, Arizona border, the police there, the patrol asked to see in our trunk for the plants, you know, things like that.

And we didn’t have the keys, so what we did was we decided to just run away from the police and they started chasing us.

And we went at really high speeds down the freeway, and we turned off onto some Indian reservation. And for the next several hours we just ran at very high speeds through this Indian reservation, and eventually we escaped from the police, and we made it back into California.

But my one little visit to Arizona is not quite like today.

At any rate, when I was in Soledad Prison, I was in there for possession and sale of heroin.

Some of you may recall in the Christian Science Monitor the series about the drug smugglers.

Well, I was right in there with them.

I was also starting to ask myself some questions.

Why did I keep coming to the prison?

That’s all I could really remember, was keep going to jails and at that point, I had already spent over nine years in juvenile halls and prisons.

That’s a long time for a young man.

As I asked myself more questions I was studying some of the Eastern religions, and eventually my thought came to the Bible, the Holy Bible. And I started thinking, now I’ve always been against the Bible because of the way I had grown up, but I’ll look at the Bible now and see if there’s anything in there that I can use for myself.

So I read the four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

I don’t know really how to describe that feeling that came over me, but I just fell in love with Jesus.

He was so pure, so outstanding in his healing work and everything I had been reading up to that point, Jesus didn’t have to take on the disease, like some of these other religions said in order to heal.

He didn’t just flash a peace sign at people.

He was active, and he demonstrated his Father’s power.

I felt that there should be some book, there should be something that would explain the Bible to me.

And at that time, a friend who gave me about 20 books on Christianity.

One of them was this little old, funny old book with a seal on the front of it.

And as I looked through that book, the sentences in there just lit up for me.

I felt that this book would explain the Bible for me as I desired.

At that time, I was working assigned to the horticulture program in the prison, in the Garden Department.

And, amongst the authorized plants in there, we were growing marijuana. That wasn’t authorized.

I was at the same time having drugs smuggled into me into the prison and was actually, dealing them in the prison and using them there.

Well, one day I was caught with one of these marijuana plants.

Yes, so they took me to solitary confinement. On the way there, I had a deep desire to read that funny little book with a seal on it.

I didn’t even remember the name of it, but I wanted so, so badly to read that book, which of course is Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.

As I started reading Science and Health, for the first time in my life, I was shown who God really is. For the very first time. And I was being shown who I was. That I was really a spiritual idea. That somebody loved me.

And when I came to the Lord’s Prayer in the first chapter and it said, Our Father, Mother, God, that just tore me up.

It just, it just, it was like, well, I really do have a Father and a Mother that loves me.

The blessings that came, the light, the Christ, so overwhelmed me, so flooded my consciousness that for days on end in that hole, as we call it, my cell would just be filled with light and I couldn’t even see the book to read, and sometimes I even wanted to, but I was so uplifted then that Christ was so powerful that songs of joy would just come to me and I would just be singing endlessly sometimes it seems like for hours of songs of praise to God.

And as I continued to read, the desire for smoking left me. Actually, the second day that I was reading Science and Health, I noticed that I had not smoked.

And it had been 16 years of smoking that just vanished as my thought was changed. And I recognized that something much, much stronger than my own thought, something that I didn’t really understand had healed me, and this was God’s Almighty power, and God’s love and cherishing for me.

As I continued to read and pray, by the time I finished reading Science and Health all the way through, that was still in the hole, I felt that if there was a church behind this book, then I was already a member of it, but if there wasn’t a church, I wanted to start one.

You see, I didn’t know if there was anyone else in the whole world reading this little book, Science and Health that I had.

The friend that had given me the book in the first place didn’t know about Christian Science.

People just passed books around in the prison.

There were several beautiful healings that I would like to share with you as I first came into Christian Science.

They seemed to move people around in the different areas of the prison.

And while I was still there in solitary, they moved me to an area where there were about 120 men, in two rows of cells and you couldn’t see each other.

One row was on top of the other, but you had three walls and open bars on the front.

As I was taken into that place, there was this huge hate chant going on. And these people at one end were yelling, hate, hate, hate.

And at the other end, they’d yell it back.

And I had been reading Science and Health for about three weeks, and the only thing that I could think of to do at that moment, just instantly, was, I just yelled out Love!

And I said, you guys got to love. You can’t hate you can only love.

And the whole place became as quiet as it is right now.

And some big old rough voice said, well, who and so and so are you?

And see, you couldn’t see who you were talking to.

And I said, I am just me, a little child of God, and you guys are children of God and you can’t hate.

And so the guy, he didn’t really agree with that. But he continued talking with me and for about five minutes we talked and then the whole place became quiet.

And for the next three weeks that I was in that area, they never did it again.

And I consider that a still small voice.

Just one little voice of truth and of love that healed this whole loud situation and overturned it.

And when I would come out for the exercise period, which was one hour a day, which we really cherished at that time, usually I didn’t get to have it very much because some guy would whisper to me, he’d say, hey, come over here. He’d say, I want to hear about that love stuff.

And it was just super.

Another time I was in another section of the hole. We would come out for our exercise period, and this was several months after I had been in Christian Science.

All morning long, I had been praying to see what man is. To see him as a spiritual idea.

To see man as expressing love and to see all the different, it was, it was like a, oh, kind of a little vision.

I was seeing all the different races, loving each other. And all different age groups loving each other and just everybody was kind of hugging and just really, really getting it on. I mean, it was beautiful.

And when I came out for the exercise period, my thought was seeing spiritually, not materially.

And I was feeling this sense of love for God’s idea, man.

And almost immediately a man of another race came up to me with a knife in his hand. And it looked like he was gonna try to stab me or kill me.

And immediately I was feeling this love for God’s idea and there was no time even to really to think or to say anything. I was just there, just feeling and expressing this love.

And this man came to within about a foot of me, and he could come no closer. He was just stopped in his tracks and he put the knife down. And he walked away.

And I didn’t really even think of that as being a real experience because I was seeing spiritually.

And what happened was the next day this person came up to me in a real humble way, and he said he was sorry.

And it was just really, really a moving moment for me.

They told me that that was the first time that he had spoken to a white person in years. He was in there for killing people.

So I’m grateful, very grateful that Love, that God saved my life right then.

When I came out of the hole, which was almost six months after I had gone in, I was a Christian Scientist. Let’s put it that way. I felt like one.

I had been writing, too much really, but I had been writing page after page of Science and Health to my relatives. I even had written a letter to the Catholic chaplain in the prison, asking him to stop smoking cigars.

And I was pretty far out.

At any rate, I overcame the fear of death because when you’re dealing drugs and using them in the prison, and if you’re… see everybody had heard about me in there, they all knew I had gone nuts. They all, you know, they all thought that I was just crazy.

In fact, the authorities had even assigned a psychiatrist to me because I would come out for the exercise period, and I would be smiling and happy.

You know, being like man really is. And everybody else just couldn’t understand that.

But after I got done talking with the psychiatrist, he just said, keep it up. He was very good himself.

At any rate, when I came out, the people that were still using drugs were… I knew that I could respect them and that they could respect me, but I was no more with that thought.

And so even though we were still friends, they offered me drugs, they tested me, and I would say, no, that’s not my thing, but I still dig you.

One man watched me for an entire year, every single day. And at the end of that year, he came up to me and he said, okay. I know you’re for real now. What is it that you’ve got?

And today he’s Christian Scientist, which is beautiful.

I am so grateful that, as I found out, there were Christian Science activities in the prison.

A Christian Science chaplain would come in twice a week. They held the Christian Science service, and what I considered, Sunday School.

And it wasn’t long after I started attending the Christian Science service that I asked for an application for membership in the Mother Church.

The chaplain gave me one, and it wasn’t long after that that I filled it out and gave it to him along with a letter to the Board of Directors in Boston.

When the admission time came around, I received a letter from the Board of Directors saying that they thanked me for the application, but no, you could not become a member while you were still in prison.

When I received that letter, I wasn’t pleased, I’ll say it like that.

I said, now I know that I have gained my freedom from all this sin and error that had brought me into that place.

I knew that I was free. I was within God’s law, and I was free.

I said to myself, that is just mortal mind trying to tell me I’m still in prison.

I got a little mad and I beat my fist on the bed. I said, no, I’m not gonna listen to that.

Well, six days later, the Board of Directors of the Mother Church sent me a second letter saying that they were reconsidering my application for membership.

And I was a little more pleased at that letter.

And the following day, I received a third letter from the Board saying that I was now a member of the Mother Church.

And I was just really thrilled and happy over that experience.

I’m grateful that since then I’ve seen a number of people that have joined the Mother Church while still in prison, but who have gained their freedom.

I’m also grateful that I’ve had class instruction several years ago actually from a man who was on the Board of Directors at that time of that change of thought.

While still in there, I wanted to express more good and share more.

Each week the chaplain would bring copies of Science and Health and Monitors and other literature, and I would almost always be taking one or two copies of Science and Health for my friends.

There were a number of people that were in the drug scene that came out of it from my example.

And actually, you know, it’s the Christ I’d like to say here, it’s the Christ truth that heals.

Some people say, oh, you’re really good in the prison work ’cause you’ve been there and you know what it is and that.

Well, that is fine for an introduction, or for just general conversation, but it does not heal.

It’s the Christ truth that heals and communicates itself.

You can be a little old lady and heal beautifully.

And I’ve heard of a number of examples where people who you just wouldn’t think would be anywhere near a prison go in there and do the work because they have the motivation and the willingness to put their self aside to do it.

Anyways, I wanted to do more in there. And I would read the Monitor. The chaplain would bring in the last three days worth of Monitors.

When I was finished with them, I would put them on a table. After a while, a man came up to me and he said, “you know, I’ve usually been getting those Monitors, but somebody else is getting them now before me and could you give me some of them?”

So I asked the chaplain and he said, sure, take all you want. And he had quite a pile there.

And so I started giving this man, Monitors. Well, within, I believe it was about six weeks time, I had 28 people that asked me to receive the Christian Science Monitor.

And you know what I had was a paper route.

And that unfolded. I never asked one person if they wanted to get the Monitor. It all started by just leaving them on this table and people came up to me. And after a while I had a little list of where their house was and I’d take it to them. I had a red dot by their name if they wanted the Sentinel, and a green dot if they wanted the Journal.

And it was a beautiful way of contact, to reaching my fellow men in there.

There were times when there was only one other man, and sometimes a few times when there was nobody else in there who was even studying Christian Science. And this was among 3,500 men.

But usually there were 10 or 15 men that were studying.

When I was about ready to leave the prison, and this Monitor paper route had unfolded so beautifully, and it had been going for about a year and a half, one of my best friends came up to me and he said, you know, and he was really humble, and he said, I sure wish that I could have your paper route when you leave.

And it’s beautiful how God’s ideas, how a right idea can’t be stopped. The institutional work cannot ever be stopped really because the receptive thought is there.

And as long as there’s someone who understands Christian Science and is willing to love as we’re supposed to, then the work will and does continue.

There’s lots of experiences that I could relate that happened to me while I was still there in the prison, but I think I’m not really supposed to talk forever.

Just a couple of them.

I had painted a painting that, that took about a hundred hours to do, and very briefly, it was stolen in the prison.

It was on this display board, and it was stolen out of a locked case. And a man came up to me and he said, do you want us to get it for you?

Meaning to kill that person who had taken it?

And I said, no, I’ll handle it in my own way.

And for several days I prayed and I just, I cried over that in forgiveness and trying to love that person.

And then, a guy came up to me with that painting in a magazine and he wouldn’t stay around, but I told him I’d paint him or anybody a painting.

And a couple days later a guy did come up to me asking for one.

Beautiful experiences like that.

And one time there was a potential strike that, well, to be honest with you, there was one strike that I didn’t feel strong enough to… I knew it was wrong. But I participated in it because I just wasn’t that strong.

It seemed like the aggressive suggestions of error were too strong.

But the next time, when that happened, I knew what I was doing.

And when they, at eight o’clock in the morning when they called the work call and their, the whole place had been tense for a whole week and the guards were all over the place on the roof with their guns and which they usually aren’t.

When they called work call and I felt that it was right, and I walked through this door, not looking behind me, but knowing that it was right to do it.

No error could tell me to stop.

And then the people behind me started following me and that broke. They went to work too. And then the other wings came and that stopped the whole mesmerism.

I was so much at one with God and knowing that good could not be stopped.

But there’s other experiences like that.

I was released, given an early release from the prison, and it was actually, a little less than four years after I came in.

Nobody, that I know of, that’s ever been in the California system for sales of heroin, gets out in that amount of time.

But I knew that I was with God, and that I was free, and everyone else saw that too.

When I came out, I joined a branch church.

A little while later, got married. Sorry, my wife couldn’t come today.

She’s a Christian Science nurse. She’s doing nursing duty.

We now have a 10 month old little baby boy, Gabriel. And he’s not quite helping with the dishes, but he’s coming along.

I had a great desire to go back into the prisons.

You know, once you’re there, it’s hard to stay out.

So not too long after I was released from the prison, I was able to go back in to Soledad Prison as a Christian Science chaplain.

There we were holding the services each week, holding interviews with the men, and healing.

I knew lots and lots of people in there and they all were really happy to see me back, including the guards, a number of them.

For two years, I served there at Soledad and then we moved a year ago. I’m now the chaplain at Vacaville Prison. It’s by San Francisco.

And I brought with me just a couple of examples of what we call fruitage, what’s going on just in that prison.

And I think it’s appropriate, I could read just a couple of them.

The first two were a while back, and the next couple were for, actually, for this month of March.

You might actually even be interested to know just a few little facts.

This is kind of average for each month for the Vacaville prison in California. This is what happened during the month of March.

We had 24 interviews. We were in there each week. We haven’t missed now for nine months going in each week, and we always hold the service.

So we had the four services. 15 people attended. The literature that we gave out was 43 Sentinels, 2 Journals.

But I’d like to mention about the Journals that if you have someone who is a solid student of Christian Science, studies the Bible Lesson, some of the men that I know are doing healing work on their own, it’s okay to give them a Christian Science Journal, because they know what’s happening.

We gave out one Herald, eight Quarterlies, two Bibles, five Science and Healths one Century of Christian Science Healing, one church Manual and 44 new pamphlets. They were ones like the God’s Law of Adjustment and Possession and Eastern Religions and what have you.

Now I’ll read just a a couple little short paragraphs.

One man in the protective custody section told me how he could see his real progress. He said that now for the first time, he comes out of his cell each morning and says, good morning to about 50 men.

Now, I should explain that the protective custody section of the prison is where the people are there that have turned state’s evidence.

Every one of them in there has a price on their head.

It’s human belief, but if they’re allowed out into the general population, the appearance is that they’re usually done in, they pass on quick.

And he also said how Christian Science has healed him of gambling.

A man asked for Spanish literature to send to his mother who is becoming interested in Christian Science.

This man told me of a healing he had, so I asked him to write it down.

To quote him:

“I had not felt well all day. I was feeling terrible and sick, and I felt as if I was going to die. Then I remembered a discussion while at a Christian Science service with the chaplain, and I began to think realistically about the condition.

I realized that I wasn’t sick and that I was the child of God and that I had control of the sickness and could rebuke it. I did so, and to my surprise and relief, the symptoms were gone. I felt well, and good, and went to sleep.”

The next couple have happened just this past month of March.

For a number of weeks, I visited a man who appeared to be very ill and was in the intensive care unit of the prison hospital.

He requested Christian Science treatment. And one week when I went to visit him, they said that he had been transferred out of the intensive care section.

I then went to see this man, and he told me that my prayers had healed him. Not knowing too much about Christian Science, I gave him a copy of the Century of Christian Science Healing and he now has a Science and Health and he’s reading it.

A nice looking, very intelligent young man has come to our last few services and he told me that because he is into Eastern religions, he could never be a Christian Scientist, but he agrees with much of the teachings of Christian Science and he was fascinated when our Bible Lesson said that Mind is medicine.

And he agreed with that.

He said that he would like to know how to heal.

I’m sure that in not too long a time, this man will say he’s a Christian Scientist.

Several weeks later, this man said happily that the Bible Lesson was so good that the statements about truth had healed in his thought, a conflict that he and his wife had been having.

And there was direct evidence of healing from the Christian Science service.

A man who has been listening to our service for a year said, “at first, I could only hear and understand about one or two sections of the Lesson, but now I usually grasp the meaning of all of them.”

You know, interesting thing about this person, is each week he takes notes as we’re reading the Lesson and sometimes they’ll say, what was that number? What was that number?

And he’s a really just a super guy.

We rejoiced over this evidence of spiritual growth. And one time he told me as I was passing out the pamphlet Possession to another person that that pamphlet had turned him on like Science and Health had turned him on in the beginning of his study of Christian Science.

And when he told me that he was beaming with happiness, again, evidence of his spiritual growth. He has also passed out a number of copies of science and health to his friends.

Last little experience that I brought with me, a man that’s been in for 18 years and just in the last few months has come to us, started coming to our services and he has asked for Christian Science treatment and received it, and he just went to the parole board, and got his release.

And year after year they’ve kept denying him and now he has it and he acknowledges that Christian Science has helped him.

I’m just extremely grateful to be a witness and to be seeing what God is and how the almighty power of God is working in lives today.

Even though humanly I seem to have gone through lots of imprisoning experiences, I know that in reality I’ve always been the child of God, the perfect image and likeness of God as each one of us is.

But if you recall, back at the beginning of my sharing with you, there was somebody there who was always in trouble, that was always being chased by the police, that was into narcotics and drugs and in all sorts of trouble. And it’s that mortal thought that still seems to be present today.

And that seems to be why we have prisons and different mental institutions, and I believe that as long as there seems to be that thought, then we must reach out, and give of ourselves and share the Christ truth so that more people can come and witness, as I have witnessed, to the healing power of God and of Christian Science.

I’m really grateful that Mrs. Eddy had the unselfish vision to share and write down her textbook because when I got this, this book, the first time, it was just an old ragged, hardbound copy of the book, yet, it was there.

And it was there by reading the book that I was totally healed of all the things that had brought me into the prison.

And we need, we so earnestly need to share and to express our gratitude.

Now I think I’ve rambled on long enough and if you have questions or statements that you’d like to make, or any questions that you’d like to ask me, I’d be happy to to try to answer them.

I should clarify. The question is, why did they allow marijuana to be grown in the prison?

The answer is they didn’t.

My brothers actually brought me the seeds. They smuggled them into me and we were growing it illegally there.

They don’t allow that.

Yes.

While you were at Soledad, did you ever hear the name of Salvador Castro?

Yes, I’ve heard the name. I believe he had a testimony in the periodicals.

That’s right. He had a very similar experience to yours, but we knew him in San Diego.

I think he’s still doing fine work too.

He’s working down in the institutions at Tijuana now and Mexico.

That’s Salvador Castro that we’re speaking of and he had a similar experience.

There’s many people who have been healed in the prisons and I’m grateful that here in Arizona you’re doing the same work and healings are taking place.

Thank you.

I’m very grateful to be able to be here today to share the power of God, to share really the Christ. Because it’s important that we see healings that come from reading the textbook.

If there’s several people that have been thinking, well, maybe I should get into the institutional work, if I’m a living witness to what can happen when you’re there and sharing, just leaving some literature or just being a little compassionate. And sharing, wonderful things can happen and do happen.

Is there any particular periodical on the inside or, as your chaplain that the prisoners seem to prefer more than any other?

Is there any certain type of Christian Science literature that the prisoners prefer above others?

My first thought is that we try as much as we can to give them Science and Health, give them the Christian Science textbook, and I start many a men off with this book.

There’s no real particular piece of literature. Some come in through the Monitor or through the Sentinel.

Sometimes I have men who can’t read very well and I’ll read the children’s article to ’em and the others in the group love it too. You know?

The pamphlets sometimes turn them on, but I really think it’s up to the individual worker that’s going into the prison or the committee that is sending literature in to feel what they feel would be the best type of literature.

You can consider what type of institution it is also that has a factor.

But I always am in favor of the Christian Science textbook and I’m grateful that the local Christian Science committee that I report to always has, uh, about 30 or so Science and Healths there for the chaplains to take, and they’re always replenishing it.

We give out usually between three and seven or eight every month just at our place.

And the others give out a lot too.

How does one become a chaplain?

By getting rid of self and praying and being strong.

In California, the way one becomes a Christian Science chaplain is you feel like you should do that work and that you can do it.

You attend the local committee meetings, as I understand there’s in Arizona this one meeting here each month. You would attend this meeting. Listen to what’s going on, and if you like it, ask what institutions need work going on in them? What needs there are?

Or if you live by one or no one where there isn’t work going on, you can go there and contact the authorities, and say, I want to help.

That’s I found the best way. You go into a place and you say, I want to help to be of service.

You don’t proselytize, but you go there to help and that’s what they want is help.

So then, in California, you fill out an application. You have an interview with the committee, and then if they approve you, then they send it on to the state committee, then it goes to the Mother Church, then to the institution, then finally back to you.

And then you’re a chaplain.

It’s not like being a minister for the armed services, Christian Science Minister, where you go to the Christian Science Center, and take several years of theological training.

I don’t know how you have it set up here in Arizona to become a chaplain or a worker.

You know, that’s just words really.

If you have in your heart a desire to help, then you’re gonna go in there and help.

And whatever your state has set up for terms, that’s fine.

I think the state recognizes the word chaplain. California, they issue you a card.

And actually it’s not too unlike the cards that you get when you’re in there.

Of course this one just lets you go in and out all the time.

The State of California issues a card with your picture on it saying, Christian Science Chaplain.

And the state committee has a similar card that is a little blue card that, that says, so and so is a chaplain and can go into these institutions just like your card probably.

Well, thank you. That’s nice to hear.

This healing that I related is in one of the Christian Science lectures now, so it goes around that way too.

Yes.

No, I think that God directs and unfolds to each individual and at the right time when they’re receptive, then Christian Science comes to them.

We have to work on this. You know, as a chaplain or institutional worker, you have to continually work to, to see that the millions of unprejudiced minds, those are the seekers for truth, and those are the ones that come.

And the more solidly that we work within that statement of Mrs. Eddy’s, the less we have of people that are coming to hassle you or just trying to get out of work or that are there for some other purpose.

The last couple of years I really haven’t had anybody come that is just playing around, ’cause we can see right through them, you know?

And if someone did, why it wouldn’t take long to discern that.

All the men that come are receptive. There’s not a lot sometimes. But the ones that come are ready. And it’s so important that when you go into an institution, you never go in to treat prisoners or to see a prison.

You go there seeing God’s perfect child, and that’s the basis that we work from.

I never go in to see prisoners. I see God’s perfect child and that is what heals. And restores. And that’s what you know, Science and Health, it’s picture of man, that’s the picture that I read and was healed by, and that we must go in as. You don’t have sympathy for what’s going on.

You have compassion, and that’s very important.

Well, I’ve talked a long time.

Thank you very much.