Article April 4, 1914 Issue

"Break up your fallow ground"

ETHEL MUNRO GOSS

To a certain gray old hillside eager footsteps hastened every springtime at the first sign of awakening life. Sometimes it was the distant hoarse cry of a crow, or the deepening glow of the willows, or just "the faint stir of waking roots" that called. Whatever the invitation, spring's promise was not complete till, brushing aside the dead leaves and kneeling down where the dark earth sent up its moist fragrance, we used to find the object of our quest wrapped in silver gray, as the faint pink petals of the first hepatica smiled back at us. Drifts of snow still lingered in the hollows, but the river below was broken up, and swept down the valley, carrying with it all kinds of debris. The sky was softly, delicately blue, and the air alive with new sounds,—the joyous song of the sparrow, the vibrant note of the nuthatch, and the tender call of the bluebird. Every year repeated the same story, and always there was the same eager looking forward, the same joy when the sweet blossoms appeared.

On page 264 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "When we learn the way in Christian Science ... we shall behold and understand God's creation,—all the glories of earth and heaven and man." Some faint promise of this future possibility comes to us now in our changed concept of nature and all her moods. The message of the spring brings a great deal more now than formerly; it has become a clarion call which was phrased by the prophet in these words: "Break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord."

In this spiritual seeking, the season of awakening life is not limited by the calendar. After some deep spiritual experience, when we have been forced to lay firm hold upon eternal things, upon reality, we have found that we are filled with a new sense of life, of regeneration, and have gained a new attitude toward our problems. Some "winter of our discontent" has been rebuked, and we break forth into songs of rejoicing; we feel akin to the song-sparrow perched on the budded lilac bush, pouring forth its ecstasy of joy. Channels long locked in the icy grip of suspicion and criticism become cleansing streams, for the joy of this new life is that it can always find expression. No longer inarticulate, dumb, the lover of the beautiful, when he has reduced his quest to spiritual seeking, finds each day opportunities for greater purity, consecration, order, and gentleness, and these redeem the ugliness and friction of human experience. The wistful tenderness of the first spring flower thrills us with a new pleasure as there dawns in our consciousness some understanding of these fruits of Spirit.

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