In a fish hatchery a group of visitors watched the caretaker as he wiggled his finger in the water. At this signal some of the fish in the large pond came and ate out of his palm. By dint of patient and persistent persuasion on the keeper's part they had learned to trust the hand that fed them. One observer of this incident later became a fisher of men. In his work of winning mankind to a trust in God's tender care he found that the patience and gentleness he had seen exemplified at the pond were needed.

Humanity has grown wary of human hands stretched out to feed them, because sometimes ulterior motives prompt the giving. Only divine Love, as revealed in Christian Science, can remove such false fears, heal the broken heart, and feed thought with the bread of Life. It is this perfect Love, whose only purpose is to bless, that men should learn to understand and obey as God. And in this Science God can be understood and so obeyed.

Mrs. Eddy, keenly aware of mankind's hunger for love, once counseled a First Reader (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 247): "The little fishes in my fountain must have felt me when I stood silently beside it, for they came out in orderly line to the rim where I stood. Then I fed these sweet little thoughts that, not fearing me, sought their food of me. God has called you to be fisher of men. It is not a stern but a loving look which brings forth mankind to receive your bestowal,—not so much eloquence as tender persuasion that takes away their fear, for it is Love alone that feeds them."

Concerning the power of our Father-Mother God to feed, protect, and guide His children, the Scripture declares (Isa. 40:11), "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young." This prophecy is now being fulfilled. Christian Science proclaims God's ever-outpouring and unchanging love for all. Blessed indeed are those men and women who, abandoning blind prejudice and fear, are persuaded to place their entire confidence in the all-loving God, as Christian Science reveals Him. Such trust is never misplaced, and is never without good results.

That Love's persuasion is gentle, yet impelling, any individual who responds to it can prove for himself. Through the study of Christian Science, sometimes without noticing the change, human thought is led to forsake, as unreal, bad habits, false opinions, baneful beliefs of life in matter or of man as material—errors responsible for all crimes, diseases, and disasters under the sun. This abandonment of the false is quietly effected as we grasp the eternal verity which Science teaches, namely, that God being omnipresent Spirit, man, made in His image and likeness, is wholly spiritual.

Thus, to be persuaded by Christian Science that Mind is All and matter nought, that neither disease, destruction, nor death can befall God's man, is not worldly foolishness, but divine wisdom. Since the only veritable man is the immortal manifestation of infinite Mind, there can be no room for the illusion of a mortal subject to physical conditions. Paul said (Rom. 8:38, 39), "I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Yes, Paul was persuaded concerning the tender persuasiveness of Truth's power. Had not the erstwhile hard-hearted persecutor of Christians given way to Love, and become the gentle Apostle of the Gentiles? And did not his heart burn to tell the world the gospel of Love's persuasive and compelling way of life? The thirteenth chapter of I Corinthians is clear evidence of this.

In the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) it is recorded that the younger son left his father's house and took his journey into a far country. There he accepted the material estimates of life and man, and through so doing sank so low that he was found feeding swine—an incident that is perhaps symbolic of catering to the swinish element in human nature. But when this son "came to himself," his first thought was of his father's house and of his provisions, for he had "bread enough and to spare."

The prodigal too was persuaded, drawn by the gentle attraction of his father's love and bounty. During his journey from the material to the spiritual sense of being, his father's care became manifest, for he ran to meet the traveler; the protection of right attraction was with him all the way. His destination reached, the young man found that never for a moment had the father lost sight of the loveliness of his son's true individuality, the worth of man's true being.

The lesson of the parable Christian Science makes plain. Not by fear, but by the gentle persuasiveness of the loving Father-Mother God is human thought led to put off the old man for the new. In this Science the goodness and love of God are proclaimed. Therein the impossibility of God's man becoming a mortal or a prey to prodigality is made clear. There in, too, thought is enabled to feed upon the bread of Truth, satisfied in the knowledge that man is ever maintained in perfection by his Father-Mother God. In Christian Science the human footsteps from sense to Soul are taken under divine Love's protecting wing; God's angel thoughts are with us all the way.

In our assimilation and application of this Science, fed, guided, and guarded by Truth, we eventually discover that our true spiritual selfhood has never left heaven for earth, nor has our Father-Mother God, divine Mind, ever lost sight of His perfect reflection. Through our spiritual response to the attraction of radiant Truth we find heaven here, and learn through demonstration the eternal unity of God and man. The understanding of man's oneness with God is a persuasion that nothing can withstand. Its warm appeal reaches all.

Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 570): "Millions of unprejudiced minds—simple seekers for Truth, weary wanderers, athirst in the desert—are waiting and watching for rest and drink. Give them a cup of cold water in Christ's name, and never fear the consequences." Christian Science today is feeding the thought of the world with the wholesome truth that God, divine Love, is All, and His way of obtaining happiness, health, peace, is the only way.