Article December 18, 1948 Issue

DECKING THE TREE

HELEN MAC QUARRIE

Christian Scientists the world over glean fresh inspiration and healing from the inspired Word of the Bible. Such was the experience of a Christian Science mother who went to her Bible in prayer for light to dispel the shadow of fear which hung over her home at the Christmas season. Her little son's playmates had come down with a children's disease, and the neighbors predicted her son would be the next victim.

In the weekly Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly was a passage from Jeremiah, which reads (10:3—5): "For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not. They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good." As she earnestly pondered these verses, which had not before unfolded to her thought, the student saw in their imagery a parallel to her own experience. And what is more important, she saw exactly what she must do, step by step, to bring healing to her disturbed thought and freedom from fear for her child.

With joy and assurance she began to analyze the passage, and it unfolded to her this way. This story uncovered to her the idolatry of matter. The forest, the tree, the woodcutter, the ax—all were fictional. Likewise, the contagious sickness, the medical beliefs, the confusion of the holiday season, were just as unreal because not created by God.

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