Editorial March 15, 1924 Issue

Two Trees

Ella W. Hoag

There are two trees mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis about which mankind as a whole still seems largely in ignorance. What the Scriptures say of them is definite and withal simple; but in spite of this, men still appear not to understand their significance. To know what these trees stand for will, however, unfold the way of salvation from evil, since on one's attitude towards them hangs obedience or disobedience to God.

One obstacle to this right comprehension has been that while men have believed that to obey God they must partake of the "tree of life," they have not recognized just how this is to be done. And yet the wise man said centuries ago: "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. ... She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her." And what of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"? The sons of men have quite generally believed that this tree was shut up in the garden of Eden when their first parents were driven therefrom; and so they have supposed its history was ended!

Christian Science, however, shows that this evil tree claims to flourish among men to-day even as in the time of Adam and Eve, and that the latter were not the only unfortunate ones who have apparently eaten of it! Indeed, the human race seems to have partaken of it very freely, since the results of sin, sickness, and death, which God pronounced in the days of Adam as the inevitable consequence of such indulgence, seem still to be in evidence.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Lecture in The Mother Church