Article May 27, 1916 Issue

A Lesson from the Sunshine

LOUISE KNIGHT WHEATLEY

In a certain sunny window there hangs a small cut-glass prism, which, delicately swaying with every passing breeze, catches the sunbeams as they wander by, holds them for an instant, and then by the magic of its touch sends them into the room transformed into dancing rainbows. Into this rainbow room there entered once a young girl who seemed to be carrying a load of care truly greater than she could bear. Her story was like that of many others,—just the simple story of a belief in a great weight of responsibility; that loved ones were dependent upon her efforts, and that constant demands must be met which were far in excess of her slender income. After a long and desperate struggle, with no prospect of relief in sight, she had at last sought to find a way out of her difficulties through Christian Science. All through the recital of the conditions involved, the rainbows gleamed and glimmered, and as she finished, one of them lay at her feet, a long, tremulous shaft of light. Somehow the beauty of it seemed for the moment to crowd out all more serious thought, and the care-worn face relaxed a little as she glanced toward the window. "It just needs the sun, doesn't it?" she said.

It thus became a simple matter to point out to the eager listener the truth taught in Christian Science,—that as the rainbow is formed by the sun and receives its color and activity from it, so man, the child of God, is an expression of the divine nature, pure, beautiful, and good. It is so easy to see that a rainbow can be and do nothing of itself. Gloriously lovely though it is, if the sun were taken away it could not maintain its existence for a single instant. All this is equally true of man. Since God is Spirit, as the Master declared, man, God's image and likeness, is, must be, wholly spiritual. The belief that man is not wholly spiritual, but in part material, has resulted in a heritage to the human race of endless complications. We have been educated to believe that we all depend in some way upon one another, and an intricate fabric of human relationship has been woven from this supposition.

Humanity seems to be divided, in spite of itself, into two classes,—those who lean, and those who are leaned upon; those who are pushing and dragging, or those who are being pushed and dragged. Yet does not our gentle visitant the rainbow point out a better way, God's way? How obvious it is that none of its colors push or crowd or drag upon one another in their effort to exist. There is room for all, enough for all, a place for all. Does any one color have to shoulder the responsibility of the other six? Yet this is practically just what many a patient, overworked, overconscientious human being, staggering along life's highway, is trying to do. He is trying to carry the whole rainbow himself, and is tired of the struggle.

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