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That Little Black Book
Gifted with a vivid imagination, Mary Walsh could picture just what Jesus looked like
as Professor Everson spoke about Him repeatedly on Sunday and Thursday nights. Even
though she had been a church-going person all her life, she was finding a new and living
experience. “I’d found my Christ,” she recalled with gratitude. “I got a real glimpse.”
As she accepted Christ as her Saviour and invited Him daily to share her life, Mary
noticed that her lifestyle was changing. That was how it came about that she stood before
her mirror and asked whether or not her Lord would do what she was doing. Concluding
that He would not, she changed her ways immediately. Before long she shopped for a
different wardrobe—still good quality but more simple. She put her jewelry away.
No one suggested that she make these changes. On her own she read everything she
could find, the Bible along with books and pamphlets published by the Seventh-day
Adventists on various doctrines and church teachings.
In her precious new Bible, Miss Walsh read the second commandment again and
again. Being a good Catholic, she was puzzled by the prohibition of image worship. She
kept studying it for three weeks; then she took the icons that had been her objects of
worship and destroyed them.
From her reading Miss Walsh concluded that Seventh-day Adventists neither ate
meat of any kind nor drank tea or coffee. To someone whose coffee pot was always on
the stove, this was startling. Nevertheless one Sunday morning, after she had worshiped
on the seventh-day Sabbath the day before, she at one moment gave them all up—meat,
tea, and the ever-present coffee.
Mary considered consulting with Cardinal Farley concerning the Biblical truths she
was learning. However, she decided that she had been fully confirmed in the truth by
the Holy Spirit, and that under those circumstances it might be insulting to God for her
to discuss it with a human being. God’s Word had become her final court of appeal.
The Sabbath on which Mary Walsh was baptized into Christ as a Seventh-day
Adventist by Professor Everson was a high day of celebration for both the convert and
the evangelistic company.
Not everyone, to be sure, shared this positive reaction to choices the talented young
nurse was making. Her aunt in New York City was dreadfully upset over Mary’s change
in religious affiliation. No doubt feeling some responsibility to the rest of the family, she
told Mary that she now wished the girl had never come across the ocean. The aunt wrote
to Mary’s father, representing the group Mary had joined as a strange sect. The truth is
that the family knew nothing about Seventh-day Adventists and did not care to learn.
At this point Mary felt that the Scripture text, “He that loveth father or mother more
than me is not worthy of me,” (Matthew 10:37.) spoke quite clearly to the sacrifice that
she was being called upon to make. The aunt dropped her, and other family members
cut off contact. Mary had disgraced them, to their way of thinking. The least objectionable explanation they could conceive was that by her studies the poor girl had become
unbalanced mentally.

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