Article September 4, 1926 Issue

"Whose fan is in his hand"

ALICE DAVIS SHELMIRE

When John the Baptist came preaching the gospel of repentance to the people of Judea, he foretold the advent of another, mightier than he, who would so clearly differentiate between the real and the unreal, the true and the untrue, the wheat and the chaff of human experience, that the one would be gathered into the garner,—established in the consciousness of men,—the other utterly annihilated. How closely this prophecy, recorded in the third chapter of Matthew, coincides with Mrs. Eddy's statement in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 466), "The Science of Christianity comes with fan in hand to separate the chaff from the wheat."

Holding in thought her definition of "fan," as "separator of fable from fact; that which gives action to thought" (ibid., p. 586), let us analyze the terms "fact" and "fable." Our textbook says (p. 207), "The spiritual reality is the scientific fact in all things." Now the reality of all things is their spiritual identity, flawless and unchanging, which is established forever in divine Mind, wherein abides every divine quality from the infinitesimal idea to the complete expression, man. This divine reflection is everywhere equally present. Since God fills all space, His expression is fully established and functions throughout infinity. Nothing can hinder or thwart its activity; nor can it be severed from its source. Creation is united to the creator, as idea to Mind. This, then, is the truth about the creation which God created and pronounced good.

But what says the material fable? From its very nature a falsehood, which is this fable's selfhood, could only portray the inversion of a fact or actuality. And so we find it presenting numerous arguments to the effect that God and man do not exist as divine Principle and idea; that man is wholly independent of and separate from the absolute government of God, divine Mind. It says also that man lives in matter, not in Spirit; and it leaves him straightway to fall a victim to this belief and to suffer all manner of discord, and finally death, because of it. Is this not a complete reversal of the real creation told of in the first chapter of Genesis, where man is said to have been created in the image and likeness of God?

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