On a drive through the country we come across large signs marked "Nurseries," places where the gardener or nurseryman has done his planting, and where we may see, in various stages of growth, seedlings and young plants which he is tending and cultivating for use,—for food, for shade, and for beautifying purposes. We may wander along paths he has laid in the open, where he has set out young saplings to flourish under the wide skies and to hold their own against the winds and the rain; or we may look into his greenhouses at the growing things that need shelter and tender watching until they are sturdy enough for transplanting.
Everywhere order is displayed, with evidences of intelligent care and untiring diligence. One thing is especially plain, but it is nevertheless one of those facts we so often accept without full appreciation: the nurseryman does not plant weeds; he uproots them as soon as they are tall enough for him to discern. What he plants and watchfully cultivates are useful flowers and fruits; and he takes the utmost care to see that the ingredients of his soil are good, and that insect pests are cleaned away and animal marauders kept out. Observing his daily round and the result of his vigilance and solicitude, and looking beyond what the material eye beholds, Christian Scientists may glean many valuable lessons and draw many parallels between his work and their work as laborers in Truth's vineyard. These lessons help one to reach a clearer discernment of what Paul meant when he wrote to the church at Corinth, "Ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building."
We have learned in Christian Science that divine thoughts are the only real seeds; that, as Mrs. Eddy writes in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 506), "Spirit, God, gathers unformed thoughts into their proper channels, and unfolds these thoughts, even as He opens the petals of a holy purpose in order that the purpose may appear." We know, then, that divine thoughts are the seeds from which, throughout the ages, has grown that great and beautiful tree,—that shelter from the storm and stress and heat of human experience,—the ever spreading tree of the understanding of Life, Truth, and Love, the leaves of which are "for the healing of the nations."
