Day by day, if we are watchful, we can learn large lessons by looking into Nature and her ways. Jesus gave a severe rebuke to those who were over-anxious, by showing them that God would clothe them, even as the lilies of the field, if they only had faith. Have any of you ever seen the care that is taken of a grape-vine? Before the warm spring-time comes, the pruning-hook is used, all the dead wood cut out, and that which cannot be tied to its support is cut off also. After the leaves, the runners keep shooting out, and are nipped back, so that the vine shall not run to wood, and thus prevent the fruit from being large and in beautiful bunches. The more carefully the runners, and all that do not have fruit on them, are cut off, the more abundant the crop of grapes. The root of the vine is dug about, and care taken not to have too much near it, to take away its nourishment.
Since our blessed Mother Church has been completed, our "Monument of Love" to the world, this lesson of the grape-vine comes clearer to me. The Mother Church, the Vine that all the branch Christian Science churches draw their strength from, must be watered, and we must dig down in our thoughts and see if we have the hardened thought of indifference towards it, for this needs to be broken up. If we allow such thoughts we shall have no fruit from our branch. Even in the winter, the seeming doubts and fears before the warm spring-time of Love is realized by us, we must examine our thought, and cut out the dead wood of materiality, and the belief of Life, Substance, and Intelligence in matter, for they are not in accord with Christian Science. The support that God has given unto us is the Bible, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," and all of Mother's other writings. Only the thoughts that will spring forth and bear rich fruit can be tied to this support. If we try to tie worldly thoughts, selfish ends, or ambition to this support, and expect it to grow, we shall find it cut off and thrown down as useless, for the vine will not nourish such things. We learn this through hard experiences sometimes. Without water or moisture the vine does not send forth its leaves and shoots, then we have no blossoms and no fruit. All who have studied Christian Science find that in proportion as we acknowledge the Principle of Christian Science to be Love, and allow ourselves to be governed thereby, we cling to all of the Mother's writings, and thank God when the dead wood is cut out, and the thoughts that run out and bear no fruit are nipped back, and we then can see that they cannot derive their sustenance from the Vine, for they are unlike the Vine. Do we wish to grow? Do we wish branch churches to spring up and flourish? Then let every member of our Mother Church see to it that we, each and every one, do all that we can to water the Vine.
Have we done all that we could do in this direction? Or have we thought that the Vine was so rich that we have failed to do our part in watering it, thinking if we watered well our own little branch that the Vine was all right? Have we done all we could to preserve this "Prayer in Stone," as Mother has called it? Have we given of our increase as God has blessed us? Selfishness is dead wood that can never live or be a branch of the parent Vine that shadows ' forth universal Love to all mankind, and knows only One Father and Mother. Do we know what it means to our branch that we love and support so well, if we leave the root unwatered? Who is the loser? The Vine, or us? For the demand is that we shall work out our own salvation. can we afford to wither and bear no fruit? Giving will not impoverish but enrich us. Are we giving unto the Mother Church as God has given us?
