Article May 9, 1931 Issue

Dew

MARJORIE POTTS MARQUIS

The day had been hot and dry. We had seen the sunset with some relief, and felt with gratitude the gradual distilling of the dew under a clear, starlit sky. How gratifying was the peaceful night of refreshment! And then, in the early morning, as the sun's rays came slanting across the visible world, what a sparkling, beautiful transformation! Each little blade of grass was bespangled, each flower made more beautiful by the tiny glistening globules of pure water poised ever so lightly upon its delicate petals. Even each fragile little cobweb was turned into a woven net of jewels. It came so gently, so gradually, that even the minutest thread of the cobweb was not broken.

What tenderness and compassion it symbolizes—this distilling of the dew! So kindly does it fall that nothing is injured, but everything alike is beautified. It calls to thought a lovely passage from the Bible: "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass: because I will publish the name of the Lord." Thus tenderly do the words of infinite Love fall upon the heart thirsty for refreshment after a struggle with some form of evil suggestion. The refreshment of Love is not heavy with words; it is not necessarily set in a certain phraseology. It does not come only to one well versed in the letter of Truth; it blesses all alike. Every tiny expression of good, every effort to manifest gratitude, is compassionately nourished by divine Love, so that not one budding thought may be crushed or overburdened with too much of the letter suddenly thrust upon it.

Oh, may our speech show forth this same tenderness! We long to "publish the name of the Lord." We long to see others blessed as we have been blessed. Then may our speech, too, "distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb"! In "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 247) Mrs. Eddy writes, "The little that I have accomplished has all been done through love,—self-forgetful, patient, unfaltering tenderness."

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