IN "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy we find this statement (p. 518): "Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud."
One spring, just as the peach trees were coming into bloom, this truth was indelibly impressed upon the thought of a student of Christian Science. She had just received a telegram from a distant state, saying that her sister had been taken to the hospital in a serious condition. The message read, "Come at once." Her father, who was not a Christian Scientist and was always filled with anxiety for the members of his family, was disconsolate. So this student knew that in order to help all concerned she must keep her thought free from every false suggestion. While packing for the trip she held to the spiritual truth about God and man, His immortal idea.
Then, awaiting her father's arrival from the office, she sat at an open window overlooking the garden, where several large Elberta peach trees were growing. As she drank in the beauty, joy, and promise of the lovely buds, she thought with regret: "How very beautiful the blossoms will be next week, and we shall not be here to enjoy them! Before our return the flowering season will be over." Instantly the reference quoted above came to her: "Love giveth to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud."
Christian Science teaches that a realization in some degree of what is spiritually true brings the manifestation of increased good into our experience. This realization, or prayer, is communion with God and is Christian Science treatment. It is the understanding and application of God's law which heals, as Jesus demonstrated. The treatment does not invoke the law; the treatment is the law unto the case and has within itself the power of enforcement.
As she pondered the spiritual facts of being, the student realized that all of God's ideas reflect "might, immortality, and goodness," and that she must see, and did see, these qualities shining through all. She did not treat her sister, because help in Christian Science had not been asked for, but she realized the truth of being and applied the law of God to free her own thought from believing that the suggestions of affliction and limitation were real.
"As the blossom shines through the bud" stood out in her consciousness. Pondering this, she saw that "as the blossom shines through the bud," so the fruit shines through the blossom. She visualized the beautiful blossoms and ripened fruit as symbols of God's loving care. Then came to her thought this statement by our Leader (ibid., p. 62): "The divine Mind, which forms the bud and blossom, will care for the human body, even as it clothes the lily; but let no mortal interfere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts."
The student continued to realize the great truth of God's all-power and of the relation to Him of His perfect manifestation, man and the universe. She saw clearly that what God gives is the expression of Himself, is His creation. With this realization came a great sense of peace.
Another telegram was received a few hours later stating that it was not necessary to make the trip, because the patient had so improved that she would be leaving the hospital in a few days. However, since they were all ready, the father and daughter left that night as planned. Upon their arrival they found the patient recovered and the doctors wondering how it had happened.
After their return home a few weeks later the neighbors began to inquire about their peach trees. They wanted to know what had been done to them. Upon examination, the Scientist found her trees loaded with good-sized green peaches. Every neighbor had many peach trees, but there was not a peach on any of them. The general belief was that what the late freezes had not destroyed, hail storms had knocked off, and in many instances hard rains and strong winds had even uprooted trees. Then it dawned upon her that as she had sat at the open window, she had declared a great fundamental truth with understanding and strong conviction—a truth that was equally available for all—not with any thought of material gain, but because it was true. In both instances the proof had been evidenced.
God did not lead the children of Israel to the middle of the Red Sea and leave them there; He took them all the way across. Love will carry all our demonstrations to completion, but we must not "interfere with God's government by thrusting in the laws of erring, human concepts." The Scientist had turned to God without doubt or fear; she had not attempted to thrust in erring, human concepts. Truth had brought about the demonstration. As the result of the correct application of God's spiritual law the trees, in spite of adverse conditions, yielded more than twenty bushels of peaches.
We read in Psalms (138:8), "The Lord will perfect that which concerneth me." Mrs. Eddy established all the activities of the Christian Science movement on this basis. She took the necessary human steps only after deep and humble prayer, and God completed her demonstrations, among which was the founding of The Christian Science Journal, the Christian Science Sentinel, and The Christian Science Monitor. Regarding the last, she saw the blossoms shining through the bud, so to speak. The idea budding in her thought blossomed, bearing fruit in an international daily newspaper, which is today a great blessing to mankind.
Mrs. Eddy proved that spiritual light, which comes from God, outshines evil in all its phases, for the activities of the Christian Science movement have prospered in face of all opposition. "He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit" (Isa. 27:6).
What we call nature teaches wonderful lessons of God's loving care, helping us to understand Him better. To make his teachings clearer, Christ Jesus not infrequently used nature to bring out his lesson. In one such instance he said (Matt. 6:28, 29), "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." The quality of beauty which appears in nature hints a spiritual source. Flowers, leaves, trees, fruit point to the glory of God's creation. We read in Genesis (1:11), "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so." It is divinely natural that the fruit tree should yield fruit for mankind's use because divine Mind's mandate is fulfillment, humanly expressed in growth or unfoldment.
These things of nature hint the existence of the wholly spiritual verities of God's creation. These symbols typify eternal ideas, which, when admitted into thought, become tangible facts in our lives. Eternal verities are God's spiritual ideas, which bring peace, protection, spiritual understanding, love, joy, usefulness. The healing Christ must bud and blossom in our hearts; then our problems are solved, our questions answered, and all discords healed. Truly God, Love, gives "to the least spiritual idea might, immortality, and goodness, which shine through all as the blossom shines through the bud."
