"Deep waters" is an expression that has come to mean sorrow and anguish. How often we have heard it in connection with one who has been in great trouble! Not infrequently a sufferer has lifted a tearful face to a Christian Science practitioner in recounting some sad experience through which he has passed. The practitioner, however, remembers Mary Baker Eddy's words in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 132), "The Christian Scientist knows that spiritual faith and understanding pass through the waters of Meribah here—bitter waters; but he also knows they embark for infinity and anchor in omnipotence."

To believe we are passing through deep waters may be to admit that we have sunk into their depths. Jonah felt the waters closing over him when, at his own request, his shipmates cast him into the deep. His adversity, however, was a step toward his salvation. Although incarcerated for three days, he was cast safely upon the shore. Have we, like Jonah, ever been through deep waters, tossed overboard, so to speak, consigning ourselves to the depths of spiritual oblivion? If so, then the way of deliverance is at hand.

Spiritualization of thought reveals an unbroken relationship between God and man, a oneness which is inviolate. At no time, in no place, and under no circumstances can we be separated for an instant from God. Even though the waters closed over his head, Jonah was safe.

Only the love of God was adequate to lift Jonah from the depths of despair, for no human hand was there to help him, no kindly heart to say an encouraging word. His friends had failed him. They believed him to be the cause of their trouble, and at his own request they had cast him into the depths.

How divine was the Love that rescued Jonah. "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Paul writes; "how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! ... For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things."

In considering some of the lessons to be learned from the book of Jonah, let us remember that this sufferer was not without blame. Some might say he deserved all he got. Certainly he was disobedient to God and arrogant towards his fellow men. His intolerance landed him in trouble at Nineveh when he was hoping for the destruction of the city even though the people had repented of their sins.

Obedience was not Jonah's strong point. He had been disobedient when he took the ship to Tarshish knowing full well that God had directed him to go to Nineveh. Jonah paid the penalty for disobedience, but the love of God had delivered him.

Jonah was intolerant with the people of Nineveh and angry with God—the very God that had delivered him from the depths. He had failed to profit by his first lesson. He had forgotten the power that saved him and mistaken the purpose of Love. Had Jonah been thinking in positive and spiritual terms, his first experience in deep waters would have revealed to him the fact that divine Love saves and heals and resurrects, and thus his sojourn outside the walls of Nineveh would have been filled with gratitude for the way in which the people had turned to the Lord.

Modern Jonahs often have a similar lesson to learn on the road to salvation. It is useless to repine and to condemn. It is fruitless to place the burden of sin on another's shoulders. In Christian Science we learn to impersonalize evil, to separate, so to speak, the evil from the man. Having done this work, we can see how bountifully the love of God is shed abroad in the hearts of others, even of our so-called enemies. We can rise from the illusion of guilt and self-condemnation in which error would engulf us.

On page 10 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy says: "We have no enemies. Whatever envy, hatred, revenge—the most remorseless motives that govern mortal mind—whatever these try to do, shall 'work together for good to them that love God'."

Believing in a wrong concept of God and man casts us into the depths, but down there in the black waters the love of God, overwhelming in its strength, rescues us.

May every Jonah profit from the lessons contained in this wonderful narrative. May he be willing to examine his own thought before condemning others. Then he will rise to the surface, but it will be the love of God that brings him safely to shore. He will learn also that the love of God is to be found in others just as in the depths of his own heart.

Robert Ellis Key