IN some of our western states, where large and valuable crops are raised, there is so little rainfall that the soil has to be watered artificially by means of irrigation ditches leading from a central reservoir, which must be high enough to cause the water to flow to the producing field by the natural force of gravity. Hence, the reservoirs are usually built in the mountains or at some point higher than the fields which they water. Those who live in the rain belt do not appreciate the solicitude with which the irrigating farmer watches the height of the water in the reservoir from which his fields are supplied.
As water is to the fields of the West, so is love to the Christian Science movement. Without it our endeavors would become sterile and barren; or, to use Paul's words in I Corinthians, Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity [love], it profiteth me nothing."
As the crops of an arid district may be fairly forecast by the amount of water available, so the prosperity of Christian Science in any particular locality, its healing work, its Christliness, its evangelistic endeavors, may be fairly estimated by the love in the hearts of its people. If one were asked, Where is the greatest need for more of love in our movement? the answer would be, In our churches. They are the reservoirs from which lead the channels that supply our movement with vigor, vitality, and growth. If they have not love in abundance, how can the field be watered? That the healing water of love in many of these reservoirs is lamentably low is a seeming fact which one might wish were fiction. The ugly snags and crags of jealousy, envy, personal animosity,petty bickerings, uncharitable criticism, and meddlesome domination, which are in evidence when the water is low, are unknown when our reservoirs—our churches—are filled with love.
