Article April 20, 1968 Issue

Melting the Mist

H. DICKINSON RATHBUN

The heavy fog chilling the pasture and the mysterious clanking of cowbells seemed as unfriendly to the little visitor from the city as the stubble that hurt his bare feet. The first glimmer of dawn was penetrating the darkness, but even that was frightening. It outlined ominous, gray forms. To his active imagination they appeared to have a menacing purpose and power.

Soon he was to learn that right where the grotesque forms appeared in the mist, there stood the barn, the silo, and pieces of farm equipment. After the sun had melted the fog, he would see these objects as they were. He would play happily in the very same place that terrified him now. He would get to know the barn, ride the machines, and love them all.

The writer, now a student of Christian Science, often recalls that morning. It reminds him how avidly material sense can embrace its own misconceptions. Moreover, it illustrates the exposé in Genesis of evil's fraudulent basis. Unlike the first account of creation—the true, spiritual creation, which begins with God providing light—this second account does not mention light at all. Instead it begins on an eerie note of unreality, "There went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground."^{Gen. 2:6;} The meaning of the Adam allegory that follows is more vivid to the writer because of his childhood experience. What unnatural, mist-shrouded images—a man formed from dust, a tree of knowledge, a talking serpent—are the central characters in this shadow play!

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