Article September 19, 1903 Issue

Though One Rose from the Dead

WILLIAM P. MC KENZIE.

It happened that I met one Sabbath day after the morning service a young man whom I did not recognize at first, though I was attracted to him in a strange way when I grasped his proffered hand. There was something new and beautiful in his thought, like the freshness of a fragrant flower just blossoming. The world without was in bloom. The orchards were white in their bridal array, and the trees along the road were veiled in "a mist of green." Violets from the woods were in the hands of the children. Daffodils peeped gaily from windows, tulips stood stiffly and orderly in the flower-beds, and hyacinths white and purple and pink mingled their odors. The doves were crooning from the eaves and fluttering to the street, and a few songsters uttered undemonstrative twitters prophetic of "the time of the singing of birds." It was the first movement and joy of Spring whose urging was felt throughout all nature. Yet that was not enough to explain what seemed so fresh and new and beautiful in the young man's thought.

There was a story to be told, and it is worth hearing. Not many days before, he had been brought to his mother's home when friends thought life was fading out in a relapse following partial recovery from pneumonia. Faithful attention produced no change for the better, and at last the dying man sent for his brother and friends to say good-bye to them. One brother was with him after the farewells were taken, and said, "He soon will be gone." All gave up but one, a woman whose love for God and humanity aspired at this crisis till the human fear of the mother-heart was conquered, and confidence in the power of Love uplifted her. She commanded those who believed in death to leave her alone with her son, and began to call him by his name; but his ears seemed deaf to that familiar word, and there was no response. Then turning away from the evidences of the senses, she began to declare to him the word of life from the standpoint of Spirit, asseverating the everpresence of God the only Life, and maintaining that God and His child, man, are inseparable. Moments passed and there was no change, yet no fear came to the praying mother. She knew that her prayer was true, and in her praying believed that she had received. And so it was. After a quarter of an hour of inaction, there came first, a faint breath, then another; and then a deep sigh, and before long the endeavor to speak these words, "I was gone, but the truth—" here speech failed, though not until recognition had been spoken of the divine power or truth, the Christ by which men have true life. The regaining of strength was steady; before long the recovering patient wished for something to eat. Later he wished to get up; but with wise consideration of the attitude of others in the house, the mother advised her son to remain quiet and gain a stronger hold on that Truth of being which would give him steadfast strength. With the simplicity of a child newly learning, the man took in gratefully what his mother could tell him of the revelation of truth in Christian Science. As when on a balmy sun-thrilled day in spring the opening of the buds becomes well-nigh visible, so could the opening out of a hitherto undiscerned sense of life be observed in him. It was little wonder, then, that when he worshiped with a company of those who through Christian Science have come up "out of great tribulation," he should have suggested to the observer some newly opened woodland flower, fragrant and dewy, instinct with the fresh life of spring.

How changed that household, you will say. Yet it was not so. Eyes that are holden do not see. And the meaning of Jesus' words become plain, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." Proof is in the man as well as in the event. Perception seemingly must go through stages; the highest truth known must be perceived and received ere there can be further revelation. The five brethren of Dives in the allegory might easily laugh away all proof given by the reappearance of Lazarus, could their brother's request have been granted. "Why he could never have died," they would say; and his warnings they would have laughed to scorn, while they used the wealth of their departed brother to indulge their lusts as he had done when he was "clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day." Could they hear Moses and the prophets when their hearts were gross and their ears dull? They needed first to be able to hear the message plain, and literal, and accepted as true by their nation, and to equip themselves thereby with new ideals of life and happiness, before they could begin to understand the message of truth in another form. But those who love the Mind all-governing, which is God, can rejoice in the opening life of the glad spring-time, and find their faith in good sufficient to accept the further proof of life should one rise from the dead.

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