Article September 2, 1916 Issue

Where We Walk

CAROLINE J. BUELL

One beautiful July morning I had planned several busy hours in a town three miles distant from the small country resort which I was visiting, so was rowed over the sparkling waters of a beautiful lake to the opposite shore. There I entered a grove where my path was bordered with ferns and mosses, the air redolent with woodland odors and vibrant with the warblings of many feathered songsters. Each minutest expression of the creator seemed to be voicing in unison the psalmist's inspired declaration, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handiwork." The student of Christian Science gladly accepts our Leader's statement on page 240 of Science and Health, where she says, "Nature voices natural, spiritual law and divine Love," and to me this was a supreme moment of awakening appreciation of the privilege and honor of being,—a moment when God's glory, presence, and power were so overwhelmingly apparent that human trials faded before these evidences of His art.

Lifted into loftier desires and broader resolves by this experience, I passed from this inspiring environment out into the open highway, and found myself at the foot of a long, steep hill, confronted by a dusty, stony, treeless road. The sun had by now grown intensely hot and progress was slow and laborious; but the anticipation that at the top of the hill I would find the town, cheered the effort. At last the obnoxious hill was surmounted, but to my dismay the same dusty, stony, glaring road stretched before me an apparently endless distance. The way seemed more unendurable at every step, but suddenly in the midst of the discomfort there came the realization of the lesson in the grove through which I had earlier passed. I looked up from the dusty, stony road which had seemed to demand my closest attention lest I stumble, and a scene of great beauty, of which I had been entirely oblivious, was everywhere in view. Hills, green vales, groves, and fields of grain met the eye in every direction, and I was enabled to "lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help,"—to walk with them and no longer with the highway.

At an unexpected turning I found myself in the town, and not wearied but refreshed by the trip. I was met by anxious faces and tales of sunstrokes, but as I began at once the work of the day, these expressions of anxiety changed to wonder and astonishment that one could have taken that long walk and appear so fresh and cool. The truth was that I had learned, at least in a degree, that the attitude we take toward every task and experience decides the issue. On page 248 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says, "We must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way."

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