Article April 5, 1919 Issue

Burning the Tares

KATHERINE M. PUFFER

The completeness of Jesus' demonstrations of Truth is evidenced in each experience related, as well as in every word of his teaching. He knew no halfway position from which to solve life's problems, and he left none partially solved. In every instance of his work he proved his understanding of the allness of Spirit in the complete vanquishment of error and its claims. He demanded that the annihilation of false belief should be complete. In the parable of the wheat and the tares, recorded in Matthew's gospel, the tares were to be burned ere the wheat was garnered.

A careful study of this plan of action as taught by the Master will answer to anyone's satisfaction the question as to why cases for healing are sometimes not fully brought out, and will reveal the remedy for any seeming return of a condition which was thought to have been healed. The rule of action has been reversed and the attempt is made to gather the wheat after separating it from the tares, but there still remains the demand of divine law to burn the tares. Otherwise expressed, the patient, and perhaps the practitioner as well, attempts to establish a scientific consciousness of health, while there is yet retained in thought a sense of the realness of the disease and of the discordant condition through which the patient seems to have passed.

The writer's own healing in Christian Science illustrates this point in metaphysics. Before coming into Christian Science she had many experiences of suffering which seemed so to fill her thought that it was most difficult to replace these pictures with more spiritual concepts; in fact, it was well-nigh impossible to do so for some time, and many sleepless nights were passed going over again in thought the experiences which constituted existence to her at that time. After a while attention was called to the first chapter of Genesis as the true, scientific account of creation, and much illumination was gained through the study of it. Then it was put into practical application and made the basis of thinking. Over and over again, beginning with the first statement of good, and the truth of man's being in the likeness of God, there was worked out in thought a clear sense that she, as God's idea, was spiritual and perfect now and always had been; therefore disease was never any part of real being; hence as God's idea she had never been sick.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Burning the Tares

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access