On page 220 of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," Mary Baker Eddy writes: "The violet lifts her blue eye to greet the early spring. The leaves clap their hands as nature's untired worshippers." This beautiful simile could be multiplied.

When the nightingale returns to her summer home from southern climes, she does not inquire the way or consult a timetable. When the touch of early spring wakens woodland and meadow, nature needs no alarm. When salmon move up from the sea to their spawning grounds in the headwaters of great rivers, they do so instinctively. Year by year they find their way up the same tributaries as if by unerring direction. In the stellar universe the planets move in their allotted spheres. The vast uncharted fields of nebulae leave the human mind astounded at the majesty of space. Its grandeur baffles description. From the infinitesimal to the infinite can be discerned the reflected intelligence of God, Spirit, Mind. Nature is an eloquent preacher, an untired worshiper, heard in deeds more than in speech. Benjamin Franklin once wrote, "None preaches better than the ant, and she says nothing."

But what of nature's destructive forces? Are they a part of the reflected intelligence of divine Mind? How can the doctrine of tooth and claw be reconciled with the beneficent influences of divine Love? Why does one animal relentlessly pursue another? Why do the so-called forces of nature rain havoc and destruction on mankind?

These questions are answered conclusively by Christian Science. On page 78 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes: "The decaying flower, the blighted bud, the gnarled oak, the ferocious beast,— like the discords of disease, sin, and death,—are unnatural. They are the falsities of sense, the changing deflections of mortal mind: they are not the eternal realities of Mind." These challenging statements demand the attention of all Christian Scientists and indeed of every lover of nature.

How much are we accepting concerning nature that has no foundation in Truth? The spiritual universe created by God, Spirit, includes no disruptive or destructive element. Do we accept this proposition as a fundamental fact? Isaiah pictured the millennial state as a condition of amity and peace: "The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fading together; and a little child shall lead them" (Isa. 11:6).

Farmers and fruitgrowers, astronomers and mariners, in fact all who work with nature, will find they have entered a wonderful field of investigation and demonstration by the study and practice of Christian Science. Destructive elements, whether they appear as cattle disease, plant pest, or devastating storm, can be met and mastered through consecrated, prayerful work. It is not necessary any longer to sit down fearfully or complacently under the threat of drought or deluge.

If mortal mind threatens the ruination of a crop, or the blight of beautiful blooms, or the approach of a destructive tornado, are we to fold our hands and confirm its dictations? Is it not more scientific and sensible to refute these evil suggestions with the same vehemence with which one would deny an epidemic of bodily disease?

Have we not a right to know that tree or herb hints the existence of an idea in the Mind which is God, and as idea it includes no material or destructive element? Have we not the authority of the master Christian, Christ Jesus, to still the storm and to find our provision in the fish's mouth, in the affluence of divine Love? May we not understand, as he did, that we in reality live in a universe of Spirit, where no vacuum of material sense can disrupt, displace, or disorder the perfect equilibrium of divine Principle—Love?

A Christian Scientist should not permit the errors occurring on his farm, or in his garden, or on the high seas to pass unchallenged by his prayerful work. Spiritual consistency is as necessary on the farm as it is within the household. The alert Christian Scientist will never admit a condition of error to be beyond the control of Truth. He should constantly remind himself of the angel Gabriel's inspiring promise, "With God nothing shall be impossible" (Luke 1:37).

Christian Science is applicable to all problems, be they large or small. Speedy correction of thought concerning error and the substitution of the spiritual idea for a material belief are immediately essential. It may be that in his earlier days the student will occasionally progress with faltering footsteps. But a time will come when, through spiritual understanding, he will rise to a higher plane of demonstration, and look, not up to but out from God upon the universe. Of this period Mrs. Eddy writes on page 125 of Science and Health: "The mariner will have dominion over the atmosphere and the great deep, over the fish of the sea and the fowls of the air. The astronomer will no longer look up to the stars,—he will look out from them upon the universe; and the florist will find his flower before its seed."

Robert Ellis Key