Article February 9, 1924 Issue

In a Garden—Purity!

MARY L. ALLEN

It was one of those delightful days, warm with the soft moistness between showers. A horticulturist was carefully changing plants from one part of the garden to another. With patient friendliness he gently lifted the roots from the old to the new and larger surroundings. He loved the "plant of the field." The friend, whose garden he was beautifying, stood talking with him. As he lifted a plant, he said, "If you injure the root system in the least, even one of the tiniest rootlets, it may retard the growth of the plant."

In the quit moment that followed, Mrs. Eddy's words in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (pp. 366, 367) came to the listener's thought, "If we would open their prison doors for the sick, we must first learn to bind up the broken-hearted." And she adds, "The tender word and Christian encouragement of an invalid, pitiful patience with his fears and the removal of them, are better than hecatombs of gushing theories, stereotyped borrowed speeches, and the doling of arguments, which are but so many parodies on legitimate Christian Science, aflame with divine Love."

A child comes to his mother with a question. He comes with eager-eyed readiness for growth. Does the mother's answer lift him to a larger place, or touch him with a retarding hand? Pupil and teacher, employer and employee, friend and friend, nation and nation, meet each day midst differing opinions, ambitions, and histories. Do they touch and lift to greater opportunity? Later in the day the horticulturist answered this question for the listener. He was gathering up the tools he had used. Picking up his trowel, he stood long cleaning and polishing it. The woman sat watching him. Turning to her slowly, he said: "Do you see that spot? It does not come off now. When I reach home I shall use emery upon it." After a little he continued, "If there is the least particle of dirt sticking to your trowel, the dirt around the plant will cling to it and pull and injure the rootlets."

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