Article December 12, 1925 Issue

In the Waters

EUNICE F. MAURER

A BOY of seven once brought a testimony to his class in a Christian Science Sunday School which, through the years, has meant much to the writer. One cold March day he fell from a pier into a large, swiftly flowing river. In recounting the experience he said, "I did n't know to swim, but I knew that God was with me in the water just the same as on the land, and was just able to help me; and somehow I was able to reach the pier and climb a post to safety." This statement, so simply told, covering an event of such moment, brings out several qualities of the childlike thought which Jesus commended and recommended to his followers.

In the first place, the boy's statement proved that he had known something true about God, had understood His nature, had experienced His presemce and power, had realized His never failing love. The spiritual sense of the childlike thought loves for Love's sake and not for material benefits; loves God is Love; and abides as naturally in the consciousness of good as the flower turns its face to the sun. This boy had learned to know God as the never failing Father, ready always to guard His child; otherwise he might not been able to rely on Him in the emergency with such fearless confidence. As Mrs. Eddy says in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 209): "Spiritual sense is a constant capacity to understand God." We are reminded by this incident that it is he who "dwelleth in the secret place of the most High" that "shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty;" that it is he whose consciousness abides in Truth and Love during fair weather, as in the pleasant of human experience, who knows God so trustingly that fear cannot tempt him, even if he find himself in the swift-flowing waters.

The second childlike quality of thought which proved a guardian angel in time of need was the boy's humility—the ability to obey God. In the lad's statement there was no vain boast of strength, or of quick wit, or of a superability of his own. He was consciously with God, alert and able to perceive God's will. It was this alert obedience which accepted the strength and intelligence to guide him out of a condition with which his childish inexperience and frail physical strength would have been unable to cope. Thus it is the childlike quality of humility, unconscious of self, alert and ready to know and obey God, which opens the door to the courage, strength, power, and intelligence which enable one to meet and overcome circumstances for which human strength and experience afford no solution.

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