"CONSIDER THE LILIES"

John B. Willis

The beauties and sublimities of nature "point to the invisible intelligence above them."—Mrs. Eddy.

The frequency with which Christ Jesus alluded to the phenomena of nature in the illustration and enforcement of his teaching, and the explicit counsel which he gave his hearers that they think upon the birds and flowers,—these facts leave no question as to his attitude toward the gentle and beautiful things about us, nor as to what our attitude should be. His words mean more than the suggestion of a privilege; they define an obligation, and indicate a need. The beauty and beneficence of the divine Mind is to come to us not as an abstract proposition, but as a practical manifestation and appeal.

To-day the counsel of the Master is being revoiced in every nook of our Northland, and as the sweet call of the cowslips and violets is heard from the hillside and meadow brook we would all fain enter upon their study, for with these children of the fields spring has brought us the children of the air, and they would be our choristers, and Christ our Priest as we

Go forth under the open sky, and list
To nature's teaching.

And how shall we "consider the lilies"? Shall it be with the botanist, who studies their order and form and relation, their niceties of adjustment to place and purpose, their wonders of variation and development? Or shall it be with the beauty-lover, who revels in the wealth of their shadings, the splendor of their vestures, the delicacy of their effects? All these aspects of the flowers may be considered with profit as well as pleasure, if their treasures of color and form and fragrance but tell us of a yet more wondrous Presence. When, through spiritual aspiration and ascent, we enter the "temple not made with hands," the impulses of holy thought are no longer tethered by materiality. When the splendors of the real break through the mists of sense, then nature is seen to be indeed "the vicar of Almighty God," and in a sense far higher and nobler than Chaucer dreamed. Then the simplicity, beauty, and truth of nature appear as they have not before, and we are shown its kinship to the Christ, that rightly viewed it is a manifestation of Spirit, and forever apart from materiality.

Thus apprehended, the glories of the garden immediately relate themselves to our religious life. The study of the lilies is now a stimulus and inspiration, their companionship begets a new sense of freedom and of strength, and we perceive the true tests of right apprehension, namely, its at-one-ment with Spirit and its healing power. Thus too we attain "those higher conceptions of loveliness which transcend all material sense" (Science and Health, p. 247). We learn that the realization of the divine nearness and activity supplies the only condition under which nature may be studied with spiritual profit. We begin to understand the relation of purity to the higher intuitions, of character to true discovery. When we come to know that truth and beauty are indissolubly united in God, the naturalness of their union in His every manifestation, including man, at once appears, and the study of nature becomes a help to spiritual self-recognition and true living. This is the gain of that poetic perception through which "the sights and sounds of unmarred nature rouse the human soul."

The botanist may acquire a treasury of most interesting facts, the artist be gladdened by beauties which others cannot ken, but he who would "consider the lilies" in the spirit of the Master's injunction must gain that spiritual insight which identifies the true poet and the true Christian. He alone reaches that exaltation of thought which found expression in our Leader's declaration, "It is Love that paints the petal with myriad hues."

Every peer into the realm of the real begets that reflex uplift of consciousness wherein it is revealed that the whole circle of nature is "one vast picture which God paints on the instant eternity for the contemplation of the soul." To discern the beauty of the handiwork of omnipresent Love is to expand and enrich spiritual consciousness so that the gentleness of the lilies has become our strength.

John B. Willis.

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