Article November 11, 1911 Issue

AWAKENING

ETHEL MAUD NICHOLSON.

There are perhaps very few Christian Scientists, even among those who before coming into Science have found inspiration and help from the study of the Bible, who do not acknowledge again and again the wonderful value of the new teaching as an aid to the understanding of the old truth. Take the words of the psalmist, "I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness,"—to the present writer they always gave the impression of a sudden awakening, as from sleep, a sudden stepping into a heritage of immortality and bliss. It was to be not only a quick change but it was to be a very complete one, or how were we, knowing as we did know, on what we based our ideas of happiness, to find simply in the presence of God the "fulness of joy"?

But, if we take those same words and compare the process with the awakening of the earth in springtime, the daily unfolding and development through a power none the less real because unseen, we begin to feel more hope of one day approaching the likeness or reflection of infinite good. We as mortals do not expect to step from the grasp of an icy winter into the softness and warmth of a perfect spring. There must be the gradual breaking up of the hard frozen ground, the gradual lengthening of the days, before the first green leaves unfold, the first timid blossoms appear.

Is it not so with our human experience of growth in Christian Science? Only as we let the consciousness of divine Love break up our frozen pride, our cold prejudice, only as we rise and rejoice in the clearer light, do we find any cause for satisfaction in our deepening likeness to the One "altogether lovely." And with the understanding of a present immortality come little by little those small demonstrations over sin and sickness, so uplifting and yet so humbling, which fill us with a gratitude almost too deep for expression as we realize that "this land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden."

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November 11, 1911
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