Article June 4, 1921 Issue

Weather

WANDA WHITMAN

THE general opinion is that nothing has been done about the weather because nothing can be done about it. It is true enough that very little has been accomplished, in the sense that there are few instances in which a record has been made of man's dominion in this respect. It happens, however, that those few instances are of the greatest importance, for they occur in the Scriptures, and stand, therefore, as object lessons to all who accept the truths of the Bible. Both in the Old and in the New Testament are examples of control of the weather by man working in harmony with Principle. In the eighteenth chapter of I Kings there is the familiar instance of Elijah's rewarded faith, when his servant's seventh observation brought the report, "There ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand." In this case "there was a great rain," because rain was needed. In the New Testament we have the supreme example in an opposite case, when Jesus stilled the tempest and "there was a great calm." Here it is recorded in almost identical phrase by Matthew, Mark, and Luke that "the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!"

The astonishment of these men was without cause, since, as Mrs. Eddy writes on page 134 of Science and Health, "A miracle fulfils God's law, but does not violate that law." It will be seen that we have the best of examples not for discussing the weather in terms of fear, as did those in the ship, nor even for complaint, but for invoking God's law of harmony regarding it. Thus we realize that a subject considered worthy of so much discussion should have occasioned more action. One difficulty has always been, of course, the belief that all weather, good or bad, comes directly from God. Destructive storms, lightning, and tempests are still termed in legal phraseology "acts of God." In support of this belief orthodoxy was apt to quote the Scripture, "He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust," quite overlooking the fact that both sun and rain here typify the unfailing mercies of divine Love in comparison with the frail judgments of man.

Modern so-called science naturally does not share the view of a manlike God who capriciously assigns rain and drouth, heat and cold. Material knowledge substitutes for this idea of Deity laws of physics just as arbitrary and wholly uninfluenced by Mind. This substitute belief is no better in its results. Weather bureaus, after much labor, are able to predict with some accuracy what weather we may expect for a very short time ahead, but beyond wholly negligible experiments with the use of explosives in producing rainfall, material science, like orthodox theology, has effected nothing in the way of controlling the weather.

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