Article August 2, 1924 Issue

The Ark of God

M. PAULINE SIEDOFF

Who has not been held in reverent wonderment whenever the familiar Bible story of Noah and the ark has been presented? It is a story that never loses its power to arouse one's thought and to inspire it with greater trust in God's power to protect and safeguard those who are endeavoring to order their lives aright and to be obedient to the light of Truth; for one cannot but be impressed with the reward received by Noah, as the result of fulfilling the instructions which came to him from divine wisdom.

We are told in the account recorded in Genesis that at the time of the flood "the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." But of Noah we read, "Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God." As the account continues, the outcome of these opposite states of thinking and acting is depicted,—the evildoers were swallowed up by the flood of water, while the right doer was exalted to a condition of safety.

Until the illumination of divine Science is thrown upon this account, one is apt to accept the inference that God was the instrument for the punishment of the evildoers. But what enlightenment Christian Science brings to the student! It shows him that evil is entirely outside of God's creation, altogether unsustained by Truth; and he further learns that God can therefore take no cognizance of evil. Mrs. Eddy, in her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," shows this conclusion to be a necessary corollary to the fact of the all-inclusiveness of good,—of God, Spirit, Mind, Love,—which Christian Science presents; for it is clear that there can be no place for evil in such an infinitely good reality. This fact, too, is in conformity with the Bible statement, to be found in Habakkuk, where one may read that God is "of purer eyes than to behold evil" and cannot "look on iniquity." Thus it is that evil, having no basis in God, is unreal; and, therefore, the belief of evil is self-destructive. It is, then, the self-destruction of evil that is evidenced in the calamity depicted in the story of Noah and the ark.

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