THE manliness of Jonah under divine discipline is rich in wholesome instructiveness for the student of Christian Science. Although he is, perhaps, the most prominent example of a disobedient prophet in the prophetic books, his penitence and subsequent awakening are a beneficent example, a precious help, and a blessed guide to the loyal strugglers for the goal of righteousness,—and this because his experiences reveal the divine order of the purifying and molding processes and changes which become operative in thought as the spiritual idea enters and unfolds into manifestation.
The story of Jonah is in three stages. God commands Jonah to go down to wicked and powerful Nineveh and prophesy its fall; but Jonah evades, and takes ship for Tarshish. Do not many of us do likewise when God calls? What follows the prophet's disobedience we know: the angry elements, the threatened shipwreck, Jonah flung into the boiling sea. Christian Science illumines the story. God spake to Jonah. Science makes plain how divine Mind reveals itself in spiritual ideas; and since these ideas emanate from God and are not separate from their source, it is, indeed, a fact that God's Word came to Jonah. It came rightly dividing between good and evil. It came truly foretelling the inevitable destruction of Nineveh, because of its mental condition of sinful beliefs. But the divine impulsion to go down and prophesy this destruction Jonah disobeyed.
The second stage of the story is Jonah's prayer and spiritual purgation, followed by his rescue and deliverance. Precedent to his prayer are noble motive and right conduct. First there is his quick recognition that the tempestuous sea and destructive wind are the troubles of his own making,—moral cowardice and fear shipwreck themselves. "For I know that for my sake this great tempest is upon you," says Jonah.
