Article November 17, 1917 Issue

Vessels for Oil

NINA F. WINN

In the chapter on Genesis in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy says that in comparison with the older Scriptures "the New Testament narratives are clearer and come nearer the heart" (p. 501), and therefore need less explication to bring out their spiritual meaning. It may be fairly stated, however, that divine Science illumines both the New and the Old Testament, and the spiritual messages to be found in them are being constantly uncovered by earnest seekers after Truth.

The majority of men and women in Christian Science have come from the older churches, where the study of the Bible was not alone advocated but often earnestly urged upon members; and not a few of us to-day owe much to our training in this direction, even if our desire to know the real significance of the incidents related in the Bible was not gratified. Inasmuch as we now have the benefits of the revelation of Christian Science, there is no reason why our thought should remain darkened along this line, for numberless Christian Scientists are finding the eternal Life promised to those who search the Scriptures.

At one Wednesday evening meeting the Scriptural reading contained the account of Elisha increasing the widow's supply of oil, and as the writer listened, and especially as she pondered it afterward, it seemed rich in lessons for the present hour. The account opens, it will be remembered, with the widow's appeal to Elisha for help for herself and her two sons. Elisha's question in response to the woman's plaint reveals him as a metaphysician. "What shall I do for thee? tell me, what hast thou in the house?" In other words he was asking her to what extent she had been receptive to good, for on that would depend her present receptivity.

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