Article September 1, 1923 Issue

Life's Harmonies

A. EDITH BAIN

IN the nineteenth chapter of I Kings we have a somewhat pathetic incident related in the life of Elijah, the prophet. Following the threat of Jezebel to take Elijah's life, we read in the fourth verse, "But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree: and he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." Then we read of the angel who came and touched him while he slept, and in loving tenderness bade him eat; and, "behold, there was a cake baken on the coals, and a cruse of water at his head. And he did eat and drink, and laid him down again." Further-more, we are told that the angel bade him eat a second time, saying, "Arise and eat; because the journey is too great for thee." And so, there in the wilderness, in the loneliness and doubt of human experience, Elijah obeyed the spiritual demand and was fed and refreshed, his faith in God strengthened, his desire to die destroyed, his chief aim again being to demonstrate wherever possible the true facts of existence, its harmonies and its ceaseless activities.

Elijah expressed great integrity, patient endurance, and sublime faithfulness; yet, as with so many of us to-day, there were times when materiality tried hard to usurp the place and power of the divine order of things. Many of his marvelous demonstrations wilderness of mortal mind, which, as our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, tells us in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 597), is "loneliness; doubt; darkness. Spontaneity of thought and idea; the vestibule in which a material sense of things disappears, and spiritual sense unfolds the great facts of existence."

How often does the same weary, belittling argument assail mortals of to-day, just as it did then: "You are worth nothing! Your years of steadfast endeavor and faithful interest weigh not one jot in the reckoning of mortals! Any moment your work may be given to another; and then where is all your labor?" Sometimes the way seems dark; the belief of advancing years may add fear to the already burdened heart, and the mortal forgets God, forgets the eternal divine Principle, and writhes in agony in the mental wilderness, where no ray of light pierces the gloom, no sound of God's voice is heard above the tumult. Then Christian Science, the angel of God's appointing, comes to the human consciousness, and in gentle, tender tones bids him "arise and eat,"—arise from the falsity of material thinking, and eat of the divine manna, the truth which all down the ages has kept men in close though often unconscious association with their God, the perfect Father and Mother, the gentle, tender divine influence, ever present and ever operative.

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