Something to Remember
[Of Special Interest to Children]
The fog came rolling in over the sea that morning in thick gray banks. The children stood at the window watching as it came up across the beach, over the meadow, and into their garden. First it was a thin veil, softly floating over the trees; then it was a heavy veil, making the trees look strange and distorted; then it was thick, dense fog, and there were no trees at all.
Jill, who was nearly big enough to go to school, turned away from the window and spoke to her mother, who sat by the fire sewing: "Where have the trees gone, Mummy?"
"They haven't gone anywhere," returned her older sister, Peggy, before Mother could speak. "What a silly question!"
Mother came and stood by the two little girls at the window.
"They certainly appear to have gone away," she replied. "How do you know they are still there, Peggy?"
"Because the fog doesn't really touch them. When the sun comes out and melts the fog, the trees will be just as they always were."
Mother nodded. "Exactly," she said. "Does that remind you of anything?"
The girls looked at her expectantly, feeling sure she had something interesting to tell them.
"You've had this in Sunday school, I'm sure. You remember in Genesis..."
"Oh, yes," cried Peggy, "the mist! "
"Tell me, Mummy," begged Jill.
They went back to sit by the fire, and Mother opened her Bible.
"In the account of the real creation we read that God made man in His own image."
"Oh, yes," Jill agreed, who loved the lessons she had learned in the Christian Science Sunday School. "We reflect God. We are His perfect children."
"Exactly," Mother went on. " 'And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.' And His work was finished, everything good and perfect, expressing Love."
"And the mist came up to hide it?" Peggy asked.
"Yes. Error always claims to hide the truth. You know in arithmetic that an error is a mistake. It is the opposite of the truth. You can't have truth and error together, for they are exact opposites, like light and darkness."
The little girls nodded, and waited for her to tell them more.
"Error, like the fog, seems to cover up God's perfect creation and show one of its own, sometimes ugly and misshapen, but always a mortal man, who can be sick and sad and wicked—anything except the man Love has made in its own likeness. Jill, I am going to ask you a question, like the one you asked me. Where has the perfect man gone?"
Jill's eyes were bright and she answered eagerly, "He was right there, all the time."
"How do you know?"
"Because God was there."
Mother smiled. "Of course," she said, "as long as people know that, error cannot fool them, can it? But if they look at error too long, they sometimes forget about the real man, and begin to believe the picture that error is showing them; and if they believe it, they begin to express it, and the things error brings—sickness, unhappiness, and lack. Now, Peggy, how can they begin to see the real creation again?"
Peggy considered. "Well, with the trees and the fog," she reasoned, "the sun comes out and melts the fog into nothing. Oh, I know! The truth that we learn in Christian Science is like the sun. It dissolves the error, and then we see the real things again."
Mother nodded and picked up her copy of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. "Listen to this," she said, and read to them from page 205: "Befogged in error (the error of believing that matter can be intelligent for good or evil), we can catch clear glimpses of God only as the mists disperse, or as they melt into such thinness that we perceive the divine image in some word or deed which indicates the true idea,—the supremacy and reality of good, the nothingness and unreality of evil."
"That's right," said Peggy. "Is there any more about it?"
"Yes, here is a sentence from 'Miscellaneous Writings,' where Mrs. Eddy says (p.205): 'This practical Christian Science is the divine Mind, the incorporeal Truth and Love, shining through the mists of materiality and melting away the shadows called sin, disease, and death.'"
Jill went back to the window.
"The fog doesn't really do anything, does it, Mummy? It seems to hide everything, but the sun melts it away, and it is gone."
"Just as the truth chases away error," added Peggy. "I'm going to remember that."
"Good," said Mother. "It is a good thing for us all to remember. The real creation cannot be touched or changed by error any more than the trees are changed by the fog. Remember the hymn which you like:
" 'From sense to Soul my pathway lies before me,
From mist and shadow into Truth's
clear day;
The dawn of all things real is breaking
o'er me,
My heart is singing: I have found the
way.' "
