Article December 30, 1911 Issue

THE CALMING OF THE STORM

LUCY HAYS EASTMAN.

A Small dog was playing in the street one morning when suddenly a pair of horses drew up, two men jumped down from a caged wagon, and throwing a netlike bag over the little fellow, roughly tumbled him into the wagon, where there were many others of his kind. The dog's mistress ran to his rescue, but her efforts were of no avail. At the crack of the whip the horses sprang forward, while the woman with tears in her eyes ran back into the house.

Across the way lived a student of Christian Science who that morning had been seeking refuge in the text-book, Science and Health, from an overwhelming sense of injustice. She was questioning how it was possible to maintain equanimity amid lawlessness when her attention was called to the experience with the dog in the street. Immediately indignation beat tempestuously upon the sandy shores of human sympathy. This state of misled consciousness so clouded the situation with its own darkened hues that the student bitterly condemned the city officers, and jumped to the prejudiced conclusion that mercenary motives rather than the protection of the people's rights lay back of city government. Then, with Peterlike impetuosity, she hurried to the telephone and related the experience to a friend of whose sympathetic attitude toward animals she felt assured. Much to her surprise, however, she met with neither acquiescent comments nor indignant ejaculations, but simply a kind explanation of the affair. It was the season of the year when the city enforced its license law; the dogs were well cared for and would be returned to their proper homes as soon as their owners complied with the law. "You know," it was added, "that harmony never remains in the presence of broken law, and divine justice lifts the penalty of disobedience only when law is obeyed."

As the student hung up the receiver she realized that indignation had vanished before the humility of a self-seen mistake. Had she not been guilty in laying blame where blame was not due, and thus manifesting the same injustice which had so distressed her in another? Clearly she perceived, then, that the only way to cease doing evil when one would do good was to leave all judgment and retribution to God, while steadfastly abiding in the consciousness of good, against which there is no law. Later in the day, when she saw the dog safely restored to his rightful home, she realized that the mental storm had been without cause, and better understood how the raging elements of mortal mind are powerless to resist the authoritative command, "Peace, be still," if declared by those who have become a law unto themselves.

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