Editorial August 31, 1912 Issue

THE UNFAILING STREAM

JOHN B. WILLIS

Few subjects are more frequently mentioned today by those interested in the welfare of mankind, than that of irrigation, since for many and vast regions of the earth it means the possible change of uninhabitable stretches of sand into luxuriant farms and gardens. Even the great Saharas of the world, which have remained the impenetrable haunts of drouth and desolation, are now embraced in this redemptive thought, and this because of the discovery that beneath the surface of these parched plateaus there are water-streams of inexhaustible flow, and when the superincumbent strata are pierced the life-giving flood is poured out, to make the desert bud and blossom as the rose. Christian Science has come to prove that in a kindred way the redemption of the inhospitable wastes of material sense is at hand; that the rivers of God, of good, though apparently hidden beneath the sands of mortal belief, are available to vivify and reclaim every area and manifestation of human consciousness and activity; that God is yet able "to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think," and that His kingdom is to be established in all the earth of human belief. This has always been accepted by the church as a possibility, but it remained for Christian Science to awaken men to the transforming significance of a declaration which embodies the substance and inspiration of the Christ-consciousness; namely, God is my life.

To come upon an oasis of richest fruitfulness and beauty in the midst of the forbidding barrenness of an unbroken horizon of sand, is to acquire a new sense of the relation of water to every growing thing, and it is to understand, as one never has before, the meaning of the Scripture which saith, "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." The effort to reclaim a desert by projecting a city upon its shifting surface, by the opening of streets, the laying out of parks, the erection of palaces, would not be more foolish and futile than the endeavor to redeem humanity without the water of that stream which St. John has described as flowing forth from the throne of God. History has witnessed to no fact more frequently and more definitely than this, that neither culture nor creed can awaken or sustain life. There can be no real vitality, no growth, either within the church or without it, apart from an individual knowledge of God. The eminence of Athens in letters and in art was, and has remained, the wonder of the world, and yet St. Paul found its people grossly idolatrous and wholly barren of spiritual life. To them he brought this basic and initial thought of the great Nazarene teacher, that to know God is to live; that all wisdom, all capacity, all strength, all inspiration, all effectiveness, all satisfaction, and all true joy is to be found in Him. This is the atonement which the coming of the Christ effects. It was the great Wayshower's constant theme, and the demonstration of its truth and power is the grace and the glory of Christian Science.

The everlasting Father is not far from any one of us. Underneath every desert of human need is the abundant stream of Life divine, and our salvation is begun the moment we banish the depressing and defeating thought that man is or can be separated from his source. In so far as we apprehend and accept the truth that real selfhood is the immediate expression of the divine activity, by which it is ever nourished and sustained, in so far we attain to and may demonstrate the Master's wondrous wisdom and power. The philosophy of our salvation is then grasped, and it becomes a fact as we drink day by day from this unfailing stream.

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