Article February 25, 1933 Issue

Onward!

NELLIE B. MACE

There are times in their experience when, discouraged by some discordant turn of events following upon their sincere efforts, Christian Scientists may feel that in some respects their outlook is not unlike that of Elijah, after his valiant stand for righteousness on Mount Carmel. The prophet had done his work under the guidance of God, as he had understood it; and then, disheartened by the implacable enmity roused against him, he went into the wilderness, and sat under a juniper tree, in the bitterness of what seemed to him the fruitlessness of his work. And there, in this condition of thought, he "lay and slept." But no honest seeker, accustomed to communion with God, as was Elijah, and as are the students of Christian Science, can long remain in a mental need without becoming aware of the familiar impartations of Spirit.

As the prophet slept, "an angel touched him, and said unto him, Arise and eat." He saw near by a cake and a cruse of water. His human need was met. He ate and drank "and laid him down again." Very familiar seems this experience to Christian Scientists, as they recall how many times, when their needs have been met, when they have been comforted, when they have felt Love's protecting power, they have perhaps paused at this point, satisfied, and, figuratively speaking, have laid them down again.

It is not enough to be healed and comforted and protected at some particular point in our mental pilgrimage; and so again, as occurred in the case of Elijah, "the angel of the Lord" touches the consciousness of the worker who, though honest and zealous, may become discouraged when errors arise. There was with Elijah, as there is with ourselves, a greater need to be met. This time the angel bade him partake of the refreshment, for the journey was too great for him. In connection with this second awakening the record states that he arose and ate and drank "and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God." May we not take this second call and refreshment to signify a greater spiritual awakening, a strengthening of purpose, a preparing for a genuinely spiritual step onward toward the mount of God? In our human need the bread is made manifest to us in ways we can understand; but there must also be the greater awakening, the clearer realization of the truth, the partaking of "that meat" of divine reality which sustains us through our days and nights of progress toward the Horeb of higher understanding.

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