Editorial April 6, 1929 Issue

Gathering Precedes Sowing

Albert F. Gilmore

Throughout Mrs. Eddy's writings there is deep significance in the arrangement of words. Not the choice of words alone, but their order as well, plays its part in elucidating her infinite subject. In a familiar hymn, deeply cherished by all Christian Scientists, while imploring the divine Shepherd, spiritual Truth, to show the way in which we should proceed over the steep and rough experiences of life, she also asks to be shown both "how to gather" and "how to sow" (Poems, p. 14). At first one might conclude that since, commonly, the harvest follows the sowing of the seed, our Leader had reversed the order of nature. But deeper thought reveals that the very sequence of the words is necessary to the conveyance of her message. There can be no sowing without having first gathered the seed.

The wise husbandman is sure to save the best of the previous season's harvest; not the undeveloped and mildewed seed, but the fully developed and ripened kernels, the very choicest of the crop, are reserved for the next planting. How much, then, depends upon the gathering of the right seed!

In translating the metaphor into spiritual terms, divine ideas are the good seed gathered by the Christian worker—the understanding of reality, which he gathers through spiritualized consciousness. The first obligation of this husbandman is to learn how to gather the good seed; how best it may be garnered and made ready for the sowing. How may he spiritually prepare himself for the scattering of the golden grain, the good deeds which are the outward manifestation of spiritual thoughts? In a highly illuminating sentence on page 370 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mrs. Eddy says, "To be immortal, we must forsake the mortal sense of things, turn from the lie of false belief to Truth, and gather the facts of being from the divine Mind." "The facts of being" are the good seed, the best seed ever husbandman gathered. Then our preparation is the gathering, the laying hold of the facts of being.

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