Article November 5, 1910 Issue

IMMORTAL BEAUTY

LAURA GERAHTY.

Some years ago two women were walking round a garden, from which a bouquet was being culled. They stood for a moment in front of one particular plant, which filled the air with its rich perfume and shot its spikes of blue-gray blossoms up and out in all directions. The fond possessor of this exquisite bloom hesitated to cut the flowers, because, as she said, "they die so soon." Then, as she raised her hand reluctantly to cut one, she added quickly and impatiently, "Why doesn't some one invent something to prevent cut flowers from dying?"

To this her companion scarcely replied. The words that were uttered were not caught, but the look which accompanied them could never be forgotten. It was at once a gentle rebuke and an interrogation—perhaps a prayer. Nothing more was said at the time, but the first speaker drank in that look with an amazement which stifled speech and begot a great longing to know its meaning. On looking back now, it is not difficult to translate that look; and in the mind of the Christian Scientist there can be little doubt as to what prompted it—that silent recognition of the realization that there is no death, no destruction, and no decay in God's eternal kingdom,—in that perfect kingdom where every reflection of Love, be it beauty, affection, sympathy, meekness, justice, mercy, or grace, lives on forever, the eternal, perfect work of God, leaving nothing that can be destroyed.

To the one upon whom it was so lovingly cast, that was no idle glance. Years have not effaced the memory of it, and by the subsequent study of Christian Science its meaning has grown clearer day by day. The thirst to know more of reality was not at once assuaged. The opportunity was not a solitary one, nor was the moment quite fitting for the necessarily hurried discussion on so vast a subject. The immediate future was to bring many a better opportunity, when the rough ways could be made smooth and the crooked places be straightened; when the soil would be prepared for the tiny seed that was to swell and break up the hard earth of materiality, rise above it, and perhaps ripen into maturity. And this would seem a moment for remembering the words of the prophet Isaiah, "The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary."

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