WE are impressed with the beauty of Isaiah's prophecy forecasting the gentle, loving, compassionate manner of the appearing of Christ, the spiritual idea of Life. "He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench; he shall bring forth judgment unto truth." How well this prophecy agrees with the writing of Paul: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith."
As seen by the prophet, the kindness and gentleness of spiritual sense will be so manifested that even the bruised reed will not lie broken; while the testimony of the apostle, given several centuries after the prophecy of Isaiah, that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,—is still on its errand of mercy throughout the ages. Manifest in the works of to-day are love, joy, peace; the acme of all true hope and desire! Love, ever blessing, and ever bestowing its cheer and help upon all who come within the radius of its light. Joy, not of matter, but the exultation of the heart that God, the giver of all good, is again known through the manifestation of His lovingkindness to men. Peace, that calm strength and harmony that comes from a certain sense of the permanency of man's unity with his Maker. In a material way what sacrifice is not made for these priceless gems? But the efforts to gain the blessings in a material way all fail. Earthly riches cannot buy them. The journeyings to the East, the West, the North, the South, blindly searching for that which is the "fruit of the Spirit" only, is finally rewarded when experience has led the wanderer to seek God, Spirit, in God's appointed way. This way is made very plain in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" which illumines the pages of the Bible, and every honest effort to learn therein of God must meet its reward.
The apostle wrote quoting from the Scriptures, "Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared for them that love him" (I Corinthians, 2: 9, R. V.). Where shall we find this great storehouse of God's good things except in the spiritual interpretation of His revealed Word?
