Article June 28, 1913 Issue

LESSON FROM NATURE

GERTRUDE A. COWLES.

Early one spring morning not long since, the thought that there are "sermons in stones, and good in everything," was impressed upon me in a very vivid manner, for if spiritual sense is alert we are easily impressed with great truths.

I am connected with a government institution in the midst of the western desert, where by irrigation a little valley had been made both beautiful and productive, an illustration of Truth's power in the desert wastes of human existence. In passing over one of the irrigation ditches I was so charmed by the stream's limpid purity that I paused for a while to enjoy the beauty of the scene, and to think with pleasure of the time to come when the land would be green with vegetation and would yield bountiful harvests as a return for the pure, life-giving water thus brought to the soil. Later in the morning I passed over the same spot, and looking down into the water with the expectation of the same pleasure I had experienced in the morning, I was surprised to find that what had earlier been a thing of beauty had become repulsive. The blue sky and fleecy clouds above no longer were reflected on its limpid surface; it had become stagnant, and was covered with slime and débris.

Searching for the cause of the changed conditions, I found that the gardener had placed an obstruction in the current's path and thus cut off the supply from above, so that it was no longer a flowing stream. Then the analogy between this circumstance and our too frequent experiences in Christian Science was made apparent. We start out at the beginning of the day, after a careful study of our Lesson-Sermon, with thought attuned to harmony, with a promise that in all our waking moments our consciousness will prove an open channel for Truth and Love; but soon, perchance, we allow the interruptions and trials incident to human experience to usurp their place in our thought, thus robbing ourselves and others, perhaps, of that "water of life" which alone can supply our need. Our fault may have been in our ceasing to give, or our failure to deny an error which was brought to us by another; thus was our channel choked with the obstructions of mortal sense, until our words and deeds no longer reflected the sunlight and beauty of Truth.

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